


The Apostle

by nanyinai



Category: Dark Tower - Stephen King, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-13 21:02:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 60,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29035122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nanyinai/pseuds/nanyinai
Summary: Donald Callahan discovers a woman in Calla Bryn Sturgis, unconscious and from a different time and place, and introduces her to the three gunslingers who have come to aid their cause.
Relationships: Roland Deschain/Other(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3
Collections: The Dark Tower





	1. Pere Callahan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Donald Callahan meets an unexpected visitor to the Calla

_Slippin' into darkness,_

_When I heard my mother say_

_I was slippin' into darkness_

_When I heard my mother say_

_Hey, what'd she say, what'd she say_

_You've been slippin' into darkness_

_Pretty soon you gonna pay._

  * **War**



* * *

Donald Callahan didn’t spot the girl lying in the field until he had nearly tripped over her, for some wonder. He was a perceptive man, but she very nearly flew beneath the radar nevertheless.

He had taken to strolling through the vast untilled meadows at the edge of the Calla recently, to ease his mind. Things had been a trifle odd the past few . . . . well, what was it? Weeks? Months? Sometimes it was difficult to say. Time had become slippery. These walks, though . . . they eased his mind, allowing him to reflect upon the time he’d enjoyed here in this strange new place in Mid-World, as well as that which he’d spent elsewhere (and else _when_ ). It wasn’t that the Calla-folken annoyed him, certainly not - quite the opposite, Pere Callahan had enjoyed them thoroughly since his arrival - but they were a little unlearned, and inexorable in their questions and ailments and concerns. It was exhausting, at times, and though he bore it patiently - the diocese had taught him this useful little skill, for years beyond count in his life before - he still had his moments when he wished bitterly for a fifth or two to drown them out. But here it was peaceful, quiet, the wind brisk and cool and the birds singing merrily in the blue sky. Just a little walk, from his hacienda to the end of the meadow, a half-wheel or perhaps less.

Pere Callahan came upon the girl suddenly, stumbling a little as he struggled not to step onto her. She was strewn in the tall grass, flattening it with her weight, arms lying palms-up at her sides. Callahan stopped where he was, arms pinwheeling a little as he caught his balance, staring down at her in utter bewilderment. She was young - not yet thirty, he surmised - and possessed of long dark hair, high cheekbones and thick dark brows that descended over her eyes. She was clad in a pair of jeans and a filthy black button-up, and she was startlingly, almost ethereally beautiful - beautiful in a way that Callahan associated with Scheherazade, or perhaps Mata Hari. And most curious of all, she wore a thick black belt around her lean waist, from which depended a long, sheathed sword. Had Callahan ever seen a sword in the Calla, or anyplace in Mid-World? He wasn't sure he had.

He knelt before her, touching her shoulder gently.

“Miss, are you alright?”

She did not respond. Callahan glanced around her, hoping for some sort of trampled stalks to indicate her advent before she'd collapsed - maybe there was some bearing to where she'd come from, before she's presumably fallen down stupid with hooch - but there was nothing. The grass around her was tall, sturdy, unbent. It was as if she'd just been dropped here unceremoniously.

"Miss."

Callahan placed a pair of fingers on her throat and was heartened to feel a strong pulse there, and her lean chest was rising and falling gently with her breath. Not dead, then; drunk, maybe. Certainly Callahan had found himself lying senseless in strange places during his boozy days, much like this. He shook her a little.

“Miss, come all the way around, do it please ya. I’m gonna slap you if you don’t, and I’m sorry for it.”

She didn’t respond. Callahan lifted a hand, a trifle reluctantly - the idea of popping a young woman didn't particularly grab him, in any case - and smacked her cheek. The girl’s eyes flew open, blinking against the light accosting her eyes, frowning and jerking an arm up over her face against the sudden assault of sunlight. Callahan patted her arm gently. Her eyes were hazel, shot through with gold, like a riverbed, and boy oh boy, now that she was awake and moving, Callahan was having a tough time even holding her gaze. There was something strangely potent about her, even halfway-unconscious, and not just because she was so unreasonably beautiful. Something predatory and vaguely dangerous, almost, like a lamed cougar.

“Hey, now. There we are. Rest easy there, my friend. Come upon you senseless on the ground out here, thinking you were done for.”

"You _slapped_ me!" the girl's voice was almost comically stung. "Why'd you _slap_ me?"

"I enjoyed it no more than you did, but I feared you wouldn't wake without a little motivation. Cry your pardon, miss. Whoa, no, _whoa_ , hang on. Ain't no need for all that, I don't come to harm you."

Callahan had placed a hand over her own as she went for her sword, her grasp a little weak. The girl let her hand fall away, but she was blinking up at him, utterly bewildered, her mouth turned down.

“Who are you? Where am I?”

“All questions I’m happy to answer for you, sai,” said Callahan gently. “But first I suspect we ought to get indoors. Are you able to walk? You seem a little poorly.”

The girl sat up a little, and even Callahan noted the tremble in her muscles when she did so, as if she’d run a great distance. Her shoulders shuddered as she tried to lift herself back up, and he could hear her breath, shaking and uneven in her throat. She lay back again, sighing.

“I don’t know. Just - just give me a second to -”

"Permit me, I beg."

She eyed him. "I don't much care for being carried from place to place like an invalid, mister -"

“Let me. You won't be the first.” Callahan had bent and scooped her into his arms in the space of a second, with surprising strength for a man his size. The girl’s expression said that she was none too pleased to be lifted and carried by a stranger, but she bore it with patience enough. “Rest easy. We’ll be someplace a trifle less exposed in just a few minutes, my house isn’t far.”

"I don't feel so good. I feel sort of . . ."

This sentiment was left unfinished. The girl was out again before Callahan could straighten, her head lolling against Callahan’s arm and her muscles going abruptly lax against his, seeming to make her somehow heavier. He staggered a little, clutching her against him. He pressed his hand against her chest as she lay in his arms, a little alarmed - a little reticent, too, to take such liberties with a strange woman - but her heart was thumping strong and hard beneath his palm. The girl wasn't done yet, that much was clear.

“Okay, then. Go on down, we’ll get you up in a bit here.”

Callahan had her at his house in another ten minutes or so, and once he’d managed to finagle the door open, sweating a little now and breathing a tad more quickly - he was not as young as he once was, and slightly built or not, carrying a girl a half-wheel was no small feat - he lay the stranger on his bed, pulling the blanket over her gently and tucking it in at her sides. This done, he drew a chair from his makeshift little kitchen table, the legs creaking over the roughly hewn wooden floor, and planted himself next to her bed, crossing his legs.

  
  


CALLAHAN kept watch over the girl here, occasionally bowing his head and praying, his lips moving silently, until she finally came to some hour later. At last she opened her eyes, readjusting her head on the pillow so that she was looking up at him, her brows furrowed. Callahan leaned over, took a stumpy tin cup, and handed it to her. She eyed this suspiciously.

"Please." He pressed it into her hands. "It's just water, do it please ya. You look a trifle dehydrated, I expect you need it."

The girl hesitated a moment longer, then, with an air of giving up on appearances, snatched the cup from his hands and drank it dry in a go, clutching her chest and coughing hoarsely once it was gone. Callahan laughed a little, taking it back and refilling it with a ladle at the little barrel next to his crude dining table. She eyed this greedily as he handed her the cup back.

"Go easy on, there. Sips, not gulps. Thirst needs to be taken gentle."

“Who’re you?” she murmured as she took it.

"A friend," he said, and tapped his throat three times. “How from head to feet, do ya, I beg?”

The girl gaped at him. “Beg pardon?”

“Er -” Callahan hesitated. “Well, I take it you aren’t from these parts, then, if you haven’t heard such a greeting before.”

“No, I sure as fuck haven’t.” The woman sat up in bed, the scant blanket falling around her lean waist. “Who are you, I asked?”

“Donald Callahan that was,” said Callahan, inclining his head a little. “Once upon a time, I was Father Callahan, but they call me Pere hereabouts, or sometimes the Old Fella. What’s your name, my friend?”

“Rane Roth.”

She stuck out a slightly unsteady hand, and Callahan, surprised, took it in both his own and shook it, looking pleased.

"Are you clergy?"

_Clergy_. Now there was a word Callahan had not heard in a very long time, and certainly never in Mid-World.

“I was once, after a fashion. You aren't from the Callas, are you?”

“I’m from a lot of places, but that isn’t one of them,” Rane replied, a little wry.

“Do you come from New York side?”

“How do you mean?”

Callahan gestured vaguely. “Well, do you _know_ New York? That’s evidence enough, in my experience.”

“Of _course_ I know of New York.” Rane was a trifle surprised. “I mean, who doesn’t?”

“What year do you come from?”

Rane blinked, looking a little confused. “Oh, man. What year. Hang on.”

She lowered her head to her hands, clutching her forehead for a moment, her long hair rippling around her face. The year. The _year_. What _was_ the year?

“There are two,” she said at last, “and I’m going to sound crazy -”

“I promise that you won’t,” Callahan assured her, sounding amused.

“1996. Then, recently, 1902.”

Callahan nodded, biting his lip. “I see.”

“Is that significant?” Rane asked, a trifle sardonically. “I mean, I have no idea where I am.”

Callahan was nodding, watching her. “I believe you may ought to meet my new friends, Missus Roth. That’s what I think. Mayhap they have more wisdom to scatter on this than I.”


	2. Meeting of the Minds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rane Roth meets Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake

_I see my red head, messed bed, tear shed, queen bee, my squeeze_

_The stage it smells, tells_

_Hell's bells, misspells, knocks me on my knees_

_It didn't hurt, flirt, blood squirt, stuffed shirt, hang me on a tree_

_After I count down three rounds, in Hell I'll be in good company._

  * **The Dead South**



  
  


* * *

Rane followed Pere Callahan outside of town with a touch of difficulty. She was still a little weak, and her gait was a trifle unsteady. Now that she was conscious - mostly, anyways - her mind had begun to race. Where she was . . . why she was here . . . what had led her to end up in this place . . . all questions she wanted to answer. There were strange, amorphous memories circling in the back of her mind, some distant and some near - a snowy mountain, gunfire, a black horse, vague and potent emotions that undulated like large shapeless shadows behind a veil - but a powerful intuition at the bottom of her mind told her to wait before ruminating upon this just yet. As they walked, she kept her mind carefully blank, absorbing what was around her, paying attention to their surroundings, to her companion and the countryside. There would be a time for it, Rane sensed, and soon. The largeness of this frightened her a little bit - whatever was happening here, Rane had a notion that she was in quite over her head - but she said nothing of this to her pontifical new friend.

Callahan had assured her that their destination wasn’t far, and she had no choice but to trust him at his word. In truth, Rane didn’t altogether mind the journey, despite her languor; the town she’d found herself in was a little strange, but also quite strikingly beautiful. It was some sort of farming community, old-school style, with its packed dirt roads and the divots that were clearly from the passage of many horse-drawn wagons. The fields on the outskirts were laden with rippling wheat and corn, rice stalks sunk in muddy water, and another low-slung, leafy crop Rane had never seen before.

“Potatoes?” she asked at last.

“Sharproot,” said Callahan, following her curious gaze as they strode along. “Never seen it before, I take it?”

Rane shook her head. “Is it some kind of herb or something?”

Callahan shrugged. “It’s a vegetable, do ya, the stalks can be cooked and eaten or used as a seasoning, but the root is medicine. A purgative. Do ya ken purgative?” He added, a trifle reticently. “I don’t know that I recall the word they used in my other life, these days.”

Rane cast about. “Like an emetic? Makes you barf?”

Callahan nodded. “The very same. It’s a big crop, near so as the ranchers’ steads. One of the biggest in the Arc come harvest, and one of the hardest to bring up true, way I hear it.”

“The Arc?”

“Let’s save the rest of the explaining for when we meet with our gunslingers,” Callahan advised. He laughed, low. “Not that they belong to us. Or to anybody, save themselves, you ken. Mayhap not even that.”

Rane eyed him curiously. “You’re talking about hired guns. Mercenaries.”

Callahan laughed, shaking his head at once. “Don’t let them hear you speak of them that way, Rane. Trust me on that one.”

"What's the need for them?" Rane slung a hand around, gesturing toward the sunlit fields. "Seems pretty peaceful here so far."

"We have our tribulations here in the Calla. I'm certain you'll hear of it."

“And why are you taking me to them, exactly? I guess I still don’t completely understand.”

“Because when it comes to folken turning up out of thin air, mayhap from some other world,” said Callahan gravely, “these ones know better than anyone else. I’d set my watch and warrant on it, even though I just met ‘em a day ago.”

Rane was a little alarmed by this. “Who’s to say that’s what’s going on? Just because I don’t _remember_ -”

“That is not for me to say,” said Callahan, low. “And between us two, you know New York, and that doesn't bode well, sai, if you’re hoping it’s something besides.”

“Is this something that happens fairly frequently?” Rane asked him, her eyebrows high. “Sounds almost like there’s a procedure in place for this sort of thing.”

Callahan laughed. “You’d be surprised.”

After a little spell - Rane put it at about a mile or so outside town, though Callahan kept talking about wheels, a unit of measure she had never heard of before - she began to perceive a faint trail of smoke rising into the air, as well as the unmistakable, not entirely unpleasant scent of a campfire. Rane was unusually astute at the best of times, thanks to her father’s genes; nevertheless, she found herself feeling a little astounded that she was able to pick up on it even at such a distance. The air was incredibly clear here, incredibly _pure_ , and the lushness of the crops and plant life around the trail they’d taken seemed to speak to that. Even the green of the trees seemed preternaturally vivid. It was like something out of a Whitman novel.

“It’s so . . .” Rane glanced at Callahan, trying to find the right word. “ _Clean_ , here.”

“The Callas are a far cry from Stateside, kennit,” Callahan agreed, smirking a little. “Good for the constitution, I’ll tell you that much. Though it has its . . . well, its oddities. I’ve wondered often if there isn’t some sort of mutagen floating around in the air nevertheless.”

“ _Mutagen_?” Rane cast him a rather startled look. “What makes you say that? Do these people have extra thumbs or something?”

“Something like that, yes . . . the Calla-folken birth wee ones in twos,” Callahan said. “It’s never been explained to me, because I believe they don't quite know why themselves - “

“Twins, you mean.”

“Twins, aye, you ken. Two of the same.”

"Well, that's not so weird," Rane remarked. "Twins happen all the time."

"Aye, but _each and every birth_? That's a bit stranger. Hush, now, do it please you,” Callahan added sharply, lifting a hand towards her. “We’re near now. Save it for them.”

Rane did, a little uneasily. They were coming upon the bonfire now, and as they did Rane spied figures near the fire, in a little clearing off the road. She slowed a little, uneasy.

“Hile, gunslingers,” said Callahan, and lifted two fingers to his throat, tapping and then letting them trail away. “I bring a guest.”

There were four people around the little bonfire as Rane and Callahan approached, and she could tell right away that all of them had known they were drawing near from perhaps some distance. And quite the motley bunch they were; a young tow-headed boy, not yet fourteen from the looks of him, with a furry little raccoon-looking mammal at his side, gold-ringed eyes bright and acute; a dark-haired young man with a scruff of five o’clock shadow and a rather devil-may-care smirk; a woman, dark-skinned and rather beautiful, short her legs beneath the knees; and finally, a tall, lean man of perhaps forty with faded leather over his chest and a big, ancient-looking iron on his hip. It was this last one that Rane’s eyes lingered on; he was clad in jeans and old boots, with tousled dark hair and piercing, pale blue eyes which marked her from beneath his crossed brows. Rane was stricken by the presence in his gaze right away. He seemed to see her from side to side and up and down, missing nothing, marking her immediately without saying a word.

“Pere,” said the young man, tipping a little salute. “Hope the day finds you sprightly and shooting with both cylinders.”

“It does, and I say thankya,” said Callahan, “but it found me something else, too. I wonder if I might interrupt your khef and speak on it, if it please ya.”

The woman was eyeing Rane, eyebrows raised. “This one of your Calla buddies? She wasn't with you and Overholser yesterday when we talked about the Wolves.”

Callahan took Rane by the shoulders, pressing her forward a little. “This is Rane Roth. From New York side. Or so I suspect, though I trust she has more to say on the matter.” He aimed a finger over her arm, indicating the strangers one by one. “This is Susannah, Eddie, Jake, and Roland Deschain of Gilead that was, as it was told to me.”

"And this is Oy," the boy - Jake - added, gesturing to the little creature at his side. Oy sat at his side, eyeing Rane with faint mistrust.

Rane touched her forehead and trailed her fingers away gently, finding herself a little surprised to be doing so - this was an Elven gesture, used exclusively between them, but it had come upon her as naturally as a handshake in the face of these people, for some reason. Susannah, Eddie and Jake all looked a little bewildered by it, but Roland, the older one with the worn guns, replied to this pantomime with one of his own, executed expertly. Rane blinked, surprised.

“You’re Eldar? You don’t look it.”

“No,” said Roland, shaking his head, and then, in such polished Elvish that it would have rendered the eldest Sindarin speechless, “ _Uin edhel, va gi nathlam hí_.”

Rane laughed, a little taken aback. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard it spoken so well.”

Roland gestured, ignoring this accolade. “Pere, please, take a seat. And Rane - ?”

“Yes. Rane Roth.”

“Rane Roth, then. Please, sit, and we will palaver.” Roland gestured, hunkering down and wrapping his hands around his knees, watching them raptly with acute eyes. “We might know what brings you here.”

Callahan sat a little awkwardly in the dirt beside the fire, and Rane did so as well, curling her legs beneath her Indian-style and flinging her sword back in a practiced motion as she did, something that had become almost automatic in her years wielding it. Eddie gestured to it.

“I’m no blacksmith but that looks like a pretty fancy weapon on your belt, Rane. Sorta Conan the Barbarian vibe happening.”

“I dunno about fancy, but it gets the job done,” said Rane, patting her sheath gently.

“Even a smithy would think no less,” Roland remarked, eyeing her. “I am familiar with the Eldarin of old, but not with their steel. Is that what you carry?”

Rane nodded, meeting his eyes. “You know much of them?”

Roland nodded. “Not from much experience, mind, but yes. I know that script on your scabbard, and I know well the way about your face, too. They’ve a look, those folken, and you have it.”

“What in the hell are you on about, Roland?” Susannah asked, glancing at him impatiently. 

“The Eldarin, like _Lord of the Rings_?” Jake asked, glancing at him.

“I know that not.”

“Eddie, you _must_ know. Or you, Susannah?” Jake was looking hopefully at his two companions. Eddie was shrugging noncommittally, but Susannah nodded.

“Yeah, I know what you’re talking about, sugarbunch. I never got around to reading ‘em but they were there, sure. All of the rage for a little while, when I was a girl.”

“The Eldarin are an ancient race of people,” Roland said. “Immortal folk, wise and fair, clever with weapons and in battle difficult to best. Keen to avoid conflict, though, or so the stories say.”

“The stories are a little wayward, then,” Rane remarked, a little offended.

“What cause do you bring to us, Pere?” Roland asked, ignoring this. “Is she given to the Calla’s cause, somehow?”

“Well,” said Callahan, “that remains to be seen, I suppose. I found this one insensible in the wheat fields on the outskirts of the Calla. She knows New York side,” he added significantly, glancing around. “She speaks like one from the other end. I thought that given your early advent, she might could do with counsel from the likes of you. Do it please ya.”

“It pleases us not much, Father, we've got enough shit to be getting along with as it is, if we're being straight,” Eddie remarked, but he was looking at Rane curiously. “Are you _from_ New York?”

Rane shook her head. “No. A lot of places, but not there.”

“But you _know_ New York,” Jake pressed, watching her anxiously. “You know _of_ it. Right?”

“From one time, yeah,” Rane said, nodding. “From another, I’m not so sure.”

Roland looked a touch surprised. “You’ve traveled _twice_? Flipped from here to there, and such?”

“I think so.” Rane sighed. “I haven’t even let myself think about it yet. It feels like . . . like too much.”

“We’ve much to discuss, then, Rane Roth.” Roland met her eyes. “Where do you come from, and where have you been? I’d hear it all, and tell it true.”

  
  



	3. Palaver I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland, Eddie, Susannah and Jake discuss their judgment of this newcomer.

_I swear it is true_

_The past isn't dead_

_It's alive, it is happening_

_In the back of my head_

_No future, no past_

_No laws of time_

_Can undo what is happening_

_When I close my eyes_

_With the stars and the moon_

_I woke up in the night._

  * **Agnes Obel**



* * *

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” said Rane at length, meeting Roland’s eyes. “And honestly, I’m not sure why you guys want to know in the first place, either. I mean -” She glanced at Callahan for help. “I just woke up in the grass, I didn’t come here on _purpose_ or anything -”

“Of _course_ you didn’t come here on purpose,” said Roland with a touch of what Rane thought might be contempt. He gestured to his three companions. “Did any of _you_ come here on purpose? Tell it back true.”

“ _Hell_ no!” Eddie remarked, sounding grimly amused. “I got shanghaied, if memory serves.”

“So did I,” Susannah agreed. “Little bit of a different situation for me, though, I guess. Jakey-boy, you came of your own accord that second time around, for all intents and purposes, didn’t you?”

Jake shrugged. “The second time, yeah. First time wasn’t exactly my choice, though, I just died and woke up here.”

Rane looked at him sharply. “You did?”

Jake nodded. He was looking at her perceptively. “That’s what happened to you, too, isn’t it?”

Rane hesitated, looking between the faces around the fire with an unpleasant sensation of solitude - Callahan had leaned back, one fist resting beneath his chin, allowing these three strangers to question her, and appeared to be offering no further help - then sighed, running her fingers through her dark hair.

“I think so. I think _twice_ , actually. Both times I woke up someplace else.” She glanced at Susannah and Eddie. “I haven’t been stateside in . . . shit, I dunno how long. Time feels all fucky, somehow.”

Susannah snorted. “Tell me about it.”

“Yeah, you’ll find that sort of shit tends to happen pretty much constantly around here,” Eddie agreed, low.

“Who were you, in your other life?” Callahan asked her.

“An auror.” And when this word clearly resonated not at all with any of them: “A cop, sort of. Think CIA but less earpiece and sunglasses. Then more recently, a bounty hunter. And a fuckin’ drunk, at the end there,” she added, a trifle drolly.

Eddie laughed outright at this. “Boy, ain’t it good to hear somebody use the fuck word like God intended.”

During all of this, Roland had been hand-rolling a cigarette against one lean knee; presently he held its tip to the fire, then lifted it to his lips and eyed Rane, jetting twin streams of smoke from his nostrils. Rane found it almost difficult to meet his gaze; those pale blue eyes were terribly penetrating, and she thought they saw much.

“How?” he asked her simply.

“How what?”

“How did you die?” Roland clarified, watching her closely. “Slow and easy? Quick and hard?”

“Both times, hard. Shot up, most recently. Although if we’re being honest, I think I was dead a long time before that, in all the ways that count,” Rane added, low.

“Languishing in drink?” Roland asked her lightly.

Rane felt herself recoil a little. This guy was amazingly blunt.

“ _Languishing in_ \- ? Jesus Christ, I wasn’t -!”

“Do ya,” Callahan cut in, glancing at her remonstratively. He sketched a little cross in the air with one hand. “I know better than most what it's like to take offense when someone brings up the booze, but all the same I’ll have none of that blasphemy.”

“Roland, you don’t have to be like that to her,” Susannah said, casting the man a look of faint reproach. “Rane, what happened to you, honey? His way of asking is rude as all hell, but that’s all he wants to know, I think.”

“I lost someone,” Rane explained, feeling the weight of these strangers’ eyes upon her and liking it not at all. Arthur Morgan was long gone now - at least from the last time she could remember being in Ambarino, shot to pieces in the snow with John Marston’s face hanging over her - but evoking him still stung. “Someone I cared about. I spent the last three years looking for the ones that did him in, and when I found them, I killed them. And yeah, I probably hit the sauce a little bit too hard on the way,” she added ruefully.

“ _Killed_ them?” said Jake, looking suddenly interested. “With what? A gun?”

Rane patted the sword on her hip again. “I wouldn’t know what to do with a gun even if I had one. I’m a steel girl, myself.” She glanced at Roland, still a little put out. “Is that what you wanted to know? I still don’t know why I’m here at all, let alone why I need to tell a bunch of strangers about any of this. No offense.”

“You said you were shot down,” Roland said to her, still watching her closely. “Yet you wear a blade on your hip. Seems like tall odds against a bullet, I’d say, if that was a likely enough harrier you were up against. Are you sure you bushwhacked him?”

“Are you saying you don’t believe me?” Rane asked, a little heatedly.

“Yes,” said Roland, cool as you please. Again, Rane was a little taken aback by his forwardness. His eyes were still on hers, quite unruffled. “I’ve gone up against plenty of men with a sharp edge, sai Roth, but I’ve yet to be bested by one while I've got a six-gun in my hand.”

Rane got to her feet abruptly. Drudging up Arthur’s death and the circumstances of her own, that was one thing, but she had never before been so brashly balked by a stranger on her skills of engagement. Those were hard won, through some fifteen years of long learning, and she appreciated this unsolicited evaluation not at all.

“Let me show you, then.”

Roland did not rise to meet her right away; he continued to look up at her mildly, one hand resting easy on his knee, the other still dangling his cigarette before his mouth. Susannah, Jake and Eddie had gone for their weapons at her sudden motion - all three wore guns, though only Eddie carried a big iron like Roland’s - and they were watching her now, acute and wary, hands lingering over their holsters. Whatever else these people were, Rane sensed they were dangerous indeed, nothing like the people of Lemoyne she’d spent so many years with in some other life. Indeed, not much like those of the Order, either, truth be told.

“I’d not waste a bullet on your fanfare, with supplies so low,” said Roland easily, and then, in a motion almost too fast to track, he had gone for his gun, aimed from the hip and fired twice in rapid succession. The report was shockingly loud, causing Callahan to clap both hands over his ears and duck. Rane was standing just next to the fire, not six feet from Roland, but his calm words of distraction didn’t quite hit home, and she found with some relief that she was as hideously quick as she ever was. Her sword had been drawn in the space of a second, and its motion blurred around her wrist as she flung it before her, sending both of Roland’s bullets away from her in a spray of bright orange sparks. The sharp sound of her blade slicing through the air and catching the shots - _whoooop-THANG_ \- was almost as loud as the crash of Roland’s gun had been. One of the bullets struck a tree trunk some ways away, spraying shards of bark. The other soared into the sky, whistling, until it was out of sight.

“WHAT THE _FUCK_ , ROLAND?” Eddie bellowed. He’d put both hands over his head and shrunk away like someone in an air raid. “ARE YOU _TRYING_ TO MAKE ME SHIT MY PANTS?”

“Could have given us some damn _warning_ , couldn’t you have?” Susannah added angrily, glaring at him.

Roland holstered his gun, ignoring them both and meeting Rane’s eyes through the rising gunsmoke. She returned his gaze, then ran her sword through a little wad of her blouse and sheathed it with a clang.

“What were you aiming for?” she asked him, a trifle insolently.

“Just a graze. I’d not shoot you down out of hand, Rane. At least not so soon.” He was watching her with a good deal more interest now, and Rane noted the familiar use of her given name with a touch of satisfaction. “Folk are prone to talk big, that’s all. A woman from New York side speaking of killing a man in cold blood . . . well, judging from what I’ve seen of that place, it begs the question, you kennit.”

“Guess you must not have heard of Ted Bundy, then,” Jake remarked. He was massaging his head ruefully, and Oy had moved closer to his elbow, ears laid back, clearly unimpressed with this sudden clamor. “That guy killed _plenty_ of people in cold blood.”

“Well, I’d hardly like to think of myself as tantamount to a damn serial killer, thanks very much,” Rane told him, smirking a little. Jake laughed, a sound so remarkably amiable and somehow youthful that Rane found herself rather favoring him already.

“Cry pardon, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sai Deschain, I’d not have brought her to you if I thought you’d try to put a hole in her,” Callahan admonished, speaking absurdly loudly; his ears were still ringing. “I thought you might be able to shed some light on her situation, is all.”

“And I may could do yet,” Roland agreed. He readjusted himself beside the fire, still watching Rane, then turned his eyes to Callahan. “We’d speak an-tet, Pere, my friends and I.”

Callahan got hastily to his feet. “Of course, of course. Shall we -?”

“Back to, if it please you,” said Roland, gesturing. _And if it doesn’t_ , his tone seemed to suggest. “We’ll meet you at your church, and there we’ll speak on this further.”

“An-tet?” said Rane, glancing around. “What’s that mean?”

“Means we’d just as soon have our palaver alone,” Eddie told her, looking a trifle apologetic.

“Oh.” Rane glanced uncertainly at Callahan. “So, um . . . should I -?”

“Go with the Pere, honeybunch,” Susannah told her. “We got some things to discuss and we’ll see you a little while later.”

Rane nodded, and cast one more look at Roland - he was watching her quite unabashedly, massaging his chin, his blue eyes astute - then turned and followed Callahan back toward town.

ONCE Callahan and Rane were out of earshot - and Roland, who knew of the Eldar from his lessons as a boy in the Baronies, left them plenty of time to do it - he turned to Susannah, Eddie and Jake.

“Tell me what you saw, just now,” he asked them. “For I’d know, as your dinh, before time curdles your thoughts.”

“Well, I saw a knockout, myself,” Eddie remarked.

Susannah slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Watch where that tongue goes, white boy.”

He cringed, looking wounded. “What? She’s goddamned gorgeous! Am I not allowed to say?”

“Not if you like the way your ass looks, sugar,” Susannah retorted coolly, casting him a displeased look before turning back to Roland. “I just saw a young girl not a day past twenty-eight hook two of your bullets with a damned sword, Roland. That’s what _I_ saw.”

“I’ve never seen somebody do that before,” Jake murmured, meeting Roland’s pensive gaze. “Use a sword to ricochet a gunshot, I mean. She was quick, too. Pulled it right from the hip, like she knew you were gonna do it.”

“‘Wick! Hip!” Oy agreed from his spot at Jake’s side, sounding equally dismayed.

“Eddie?” Roland asked, lifting his chin at the younger man. “You see anything else besides a pretty face?”

“Oh, hell.” Eddie was a little flushed. “Yeah, I did, now you ask. I saw her draw as fast as any one of us, and I also saw the way she bucked up to you. She doesn’t know who you are, or _what_ you are. What _we_ are. So whatever she’s talking about, with all this crap about dying and being from keystone earth . . . I think she’s telling the truth, personally.”

Roland nodded, chewing his thumb. After a moment he glanced over the fire at Jake.

“You’ve got the touch, Jake, stronger than any one of us. What do you think of the girl? I’d hear.”

Jake pondered this a moment, shifting his weight and curling his legs before him, the gentle late afternoon wind teasing the ends of his hair about his clear, sunburned forehead. Around them, the insects and birdsong were loud and lovely, and the lowing of cattle could be heard from on up northeast, perhaps on Eisenhart’s ranch.

“She’s . . . different,” said Jake haltingly. “There’s something sort of . . . I don’t know.” He struggled, looking at Susannah. “What’s the word for how you feel when you’re in a church? For . . . for, I dunno, the Virgin Mary or something?”

Susannah cast about. “Oh, I dunno, sugar. Divine? Celestial?”

Jake nodded at once. “Something about her isn’t like us. Not just because of how pretty she is,” he added, glancing at Eddie and reddening a little. “It’s something else.”

“The Eldar are a race of immortals, dangerous folk with fast hands and lovely faces,” Roland agreed, nodding. He tossed away the husk of his cigarette, which was long since cashed. “If she is what she says - and I believe she may be - she likely could hear the hearts in our chests ticking away from untold distance, never mind our words an-tet. They’re a trig people, sharp-sensed and capable of seeing and listening over great distance, you ken.”

“That why you gave her and Callahan a quarter-mile toward town before you said anything?” Susannah asked curiously.

“Yes.” Roland turned to Jake once more. “Do you feel she is a danger to these Calla-folken? Or to us?”

“To _us_? _Puh_.” Susannah scoffed, looking highly skeptical. In that moment, there was no small amount of Detta Walker in her haughty gaze. “I’d plant two right in her ass if she ever tried to -”

“Hush.” Roland was still watching Jake. “What say you, Jake? Does she threaten?”

Jake was shaking his head. “No. Well . . . maybe if she _wanted_ to, I guess, but . . . I don’t think she does. She seems good, Roland, but she also seems sort of . . . sort of lost. And sad.”

“I felt that, too,” Roland agreed. For a moment he chewed his thumb, staring into the fire. Eddie, true to form, broke the silence first.

“You want her to help us to fight off these Wolves, or whatever the hell they are, for these people in the Calla. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

Roland nodded slowly, still chewing his thumb. “I’d like that very much, yes. We are bound now, and an extra pair of hands would be welcome."

"Is that why you fired on her? To rile her up?" Eddie looked grimly amused. "Probably would have been more polite to just ask her to show us, you know, buckaroo."

"I wanted to see how fast she was," Roland replied, shrugging, quite unabashed. "Had she expected it, she'd have had the advantage, and in an open gunfight, that's never the case. I'd not have believed her bluster about laying men low unless I saw for myself. Certainly not with that steel she carries, in any case."

"Funny, isn't it, how she just sort of popped up right as we got here?" Jake remarked, low. "Pretty crazy coincidence, since none of the people here really know how to fight."

"No coincidence," Roland said. "Ka."

“Ka,” Susannah echoed.

“She didn’t turn up in this little rancher’s town on the cusp of battle for no reason,” Roland agreed, nodding. “I believe she was guided here. Deposited here, if you’d like. And as such, it’s our duty to utilize her.”

_Utilize_. Eddie found he didn’t much care for that turn of phrase. As if this girl was a screwdriver, and the Calla was a loose doorjamb. He’d heard Roland speak of others so, several times before - at least once or twice of him, Susannah and Jake, certainly - but it never ceased to dismay him a little.

Roland was looking at him shrewdly. “You don’t care for my assessment of that girl, Eddie? I’d hear your thoughts.”

“Well, if we’re being honest, Roland, she seems a little bit vulnerable, is all.”

“ _Vulnerable_?” Jake cast Eddie a startled look. “Did you see what she _did_?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I mean, you can be good at something without being altogether there. Like, you know . . . _emotionally_.” Eddie struggled with the verbiage. As usual, it was more than a little difficult to make Roland Deschain understand certain aspects of the human condition. The man was a crackshot, but he had his failings when it came to simple empathy, sometimes. “She’s busted up about whatever happened to her, Roland, that much seems pretty clear. I mean I’m not a psychiatrist or anything, but when she started talking about how she’d lost somebody and then lit out to find whoever did him in . . . I mean, it didn't exactly scream 'mental sanctity' to me, you know what I mean?”

“Eddie’s right,” Susannah agreed, low. “She was talking about her man, that much was pretty clear. Why else would a girl spend years and years out for revenge like that?”

“Maybe it was family,” Jake suggested.

“‘Am’lee,” Oy agreed firmly in his raspy voice. As far as he was concerned, Jake's opinion was gospel.

But Susannah was shaking her head. “Jake, you might still be too young to understand this sort of thing, sugar, but a woman doesn’t get that look about her over her mama or her daddy. Trust me on this one. That girl was in _love_.”

“I took as much from that myself,” Roland agreed, nodding and stroking his chin. “And that along with her mention of graf makes me suspicious of her, indeed.”

“What, you mean what she said about drinking?” Eddie looked surprised and perhaps a little bit stung. “That doesn't necessarily mean anything, Roland. Shit, I was balls-deep in heroin when you yanked me into this hellhole, and look how I turned out!”

“Yes,” said Roland, eyeing him wryly, “I see very well how you turned out, after much toil and many long nights listening to you bitch and mewl and vomit, if you’ll recall.”

Eddie drew back, a little chastened. “Well, that’s a hell of a thing to say.”

“But is it true?” Roland was rolling another cigarette, not looking at Eddie. “She seems fitted enough, and capable with a weapon, but that is a fold in her makings that may prove troublesome. That’s all I mean by it. And the fact that she mentioned it so boldly tells me that she’d grown so accustomed to it in whatever place she came from that it drew no shame or chastisement from her to speak so, any longer. That, or she simply has a quick and foolish tongue. One or the next, it makes no difference and comes to the same: some of her character owes.”

Eddie was a tad insulted by this, too - _a fold in her makings_ , as much as the one he had himself - but he chose to bite his tongue, for now. Whatever was happening with this newcomer, it felt important. His wife had no such reservations.

"You think her character owes because she _loved_ somebody?" Susannah asked Roland, looking at least as dismayed as Eddie.

"I think it because she spent so long pining after him. Enough to seek vengeance, to bend her thought on it and allow her life to pass. A waste of many good years," Roland added. "In the prime of her life, no less. Revenge is a fool's game, Susannah, it serves only oneself and nothing more."

"Well, that's a pile of horseshit, Roland, and I don't mind saying so," Susannah said, crossing her arms and glaring over at him. "Loving somebody that much isn't a weakness. Quite the opposite, matter of fact. Just because _your_ grouchy old ass can't -"

"It's not the love that vexes me, it's the time spent ruminating," Roland cut her off, looking a little impatient. "Three years is a long while Susannah, a very long while, just to lay a man low. It speaks to her mettle, but also to her stubbornness. A dangerous combination, sometimes. Cuthbert was possessed of both, in the old days in Mejis, and it was his undoing. Sounds like it may have been hers as well, perhaps not just once but twice."

“So what do you mean to do?” Jake asked Roland.

“I mean to ask her to join us,” said Roland.

Eddie scoffed derisively. "Even after all that talk about how she's a whiny drunk?"

“You think she’s . . . ?” Susannah trailed off, looking uncertain. Roland, however, didn’t shy from this question.

“I think she is meant to be a part of our tet, yes. I think ka wills it, by sending her here, so near to our trials. A gunslinger? I know not, but from what I just saw, she moves as one would, sure. But I don’t mean to move on this too quickly,” he added, glancing between them. “We will go slow and steady, you ken, and watch and listen before we act. And not a word of this to any of the Calla-Folken until the time comes. Best they not be stirred up by any more fingers in the kettle.”

“You mean, ‘hands in the pot?’” said Jake, looking amused. This was a phrase he'd taught Roland some days before, though it clearly hadn't stuck.

“If you like.” Roland was getting to his feet. “Listen, now, all of you: we don’t know much about this woman. And as I said, the Eldar are slippery folk with tongues as quick as their hands -”

“The _Lord of the Rings_ people,” Susannah said, one eyebrow raised.

“If you like,” Roland repeated, nodding distractedly. “Call them what you will, as long as you remember that they’re dangerous and clever. Trig _delah_. And though she looks young and lovely and harmless, I believe that she may have teeth to bear, come the need. So tread softly, and let me lead. Understand?”

“Should we worry?” Eddie asked, a little reticently, as he got to his feet and hoisted Suze into her chair.

Roland shook his head. “Jake tells me she’s not a danger to us. And I trust in him, so I do.”

Eddie and Roland were turning away, gathering their scant belongings and stamping out the meager campfire, so only Susannah saw the little ember-glow of pride that blossomed on Jake’s face at these words, lighting his mouth into a barely suppressed, pleased grin.


	4. Callahan's Church

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rane speaks on the Wolves with the gunslingers

_When the last light warms the rocks,_

_And the rattlesnakes unfold,_

_Mountain cats will come to drag away your bones._

_And rise with me forever,_

_Across the silent sand,_

_And the stars will be your eyes,_

_And the wind will be my hands._

  * **The Handsome Family**



* * *

Dusk found Eddie, Susannah, Roland, Oy and Jake approaching the Pere’s church, which sat on the outskirts of town proper. It was a humble little building, slung low to the ground, crassly constructed but rather charming, nonetheless. Susannah thought to herself as she sat in her chair, listening to Eddie’s slightly hastened breath as he pushed her just behind, that there was something sort of _Little House on the Prairie_ about it, right down to the crude beds of larkspur and aster that dotted the loose earth around the porch. Yet even so, there was a certain . . . gloom that seemed to exude from it. And all four of them - like as not, all five - knew just why that was.

“You can sort of feel it, can’t you?” Jake remarked, low, clearly picking up on this.

“Aye. Black Thirteen.” Roland was nodding grimly. “I’d not be within a wheel of it, if I had my choice, but it seems ka has other plans for the likes of us.”

Eddie shuddered. “How does Callahan live in this place, with that thing right underneath his floorboards? Shit, I’d be jumping out of my skin.”

“People can get used to anything, honeybunch,” Susannah remarked dryly, glancing back at him. “I’ll be the first one to attest to _that_.”

“Yeah, well swiping costume jewelry from Macy’s isn’t exactly on par with making your bed over a Bend o’ the Rainbow, Suze, if we’re splitting hairs here -”

“You sure do have a big ol’ mouth on you, Mister Dean,” Susannah remarked, and leaning backwards drew his face to hers by the back of his neck and kissed him. He didn’t protest. “Can’t hardly keep that thing shut, huh?”

“What can I say? The Lord created me flawed. Not _that_ flawed, mind you, but you know what I mean -”

“Quiet, now,” Roland admonished. His voice was very low. “Remember what I told you of the Eldar and their sharpness, do ya. We’ll be asking this woman to take up our cause now, helping these folken of the Calla, and I can’t have her saying no.”

Eddie watched Roland curiously. “What if she _does_ say no?” he asked at length, unable to help himself.

“She won’t,” said Roland simply, and said no more.

Callahan was flinging open the door at their advent, lifting a hand in greeting. “Hile, gunslingers. I’ve coffee and company, if you’d take of it.”

“We would, gratefully,” Roland replied as Eddie lifted Susannah from her chair and placed her on his hip, making for the steps. Jake was striding towards the church too, Oy trotting amiably at his heel as usual. “But not for long. This place feels a trifle contrary, Pere, if you take my meaning.”

Callahan clearly did. He was nodding. “I take it very well, sai Deschain, but come in, I beg. A cuppa, and then to town. They’ve laid out a banquet for your arrival, gunslingers, and now they’ve got a new guest to entertain.”

"That they have," said Roland.

“You’re gonna haul her into town with us? What happened to not freaking the Calla people out, Roland?” Eddie glanced at his dinh, surprised. “You don’t think they’ll - ?”

“That is a question for once we’ve palavered, Eddie Dean, and I’d remind you, for the _third_ time now, that we are likely speaking to more than just the Pere when we are so near,” Roland interrupted pointedly. He gestured with one calloused hand. “Get thee into this abbey, do it please ya very well, so that we might get this business done and dusted.”

Eddie lifted both hands palms-out, striding past Roland. “Alright, alright, hell, I get it. This is all a little bit weird.”

Callahan bowed them all into the church, which was redolent of fresh coffee, incense and old wood. Rane Roth was sitting in a pew at the fore, her legs curled beneath her Indian-style, clutching a steaming cup of coffee in both hands. Her hair was damp against her cheeks, draped over one shoulder, and Susannah suspected that the Pere had provided her with a bath, although she hadn’t the foggiest where or how. The difference was startling, nevertheless; the girl they’d met on the trail had been beautiful, no doubt, but this one, spiffed up a bit and washed clean of the dirt and gunsmoke residue, was positively gorgeous, with her dark brows and fresh, perceptive gaze. She had to reluctantly agree with Eddie; this girl _was_ a knockout. And, she noted with droll amusement, she wasn’t the only one that had noticed this: Jake was gaping at her helplessly, his mouth slightly open, and although Roland Deschain was one detached, matter-of-fact son of a bitch, even _his_ eyes were cutting over to her with telling frequency. Men were men, she supposed wearily, no matter where they came from or how quick they were with a gun.

“You said we had a few more things to discuss,” said Callahan, looking at Roland. He, alone, seemed able to keep his eyes to himself. “I’d hear what you have to say.”

Roland cleared his throat, shuffling his feet a little and dragging his gaze away from Rane. Susannah could have laughed. “Yes, we do. But not with you, Pere, with sai Roth here. We’ve a proposition for you,” he added, glancing at her. “If you’d hear it, we’d tell.”

“I mean, I don't have a whole lot else going on this very second,” Rane replied, shrugging. "I'm happy to help out a couple mercenaries, sure."

Callahan sucked his teeth a little at this last, but none of the gunslingers gave any indication that this offended them. Roland took a seat on the shallow steps before the iconostasis, dangling his hands between his knees (it was a humble thing, a simple and rather crude rendering of the Man Jesus accompanied by a pair of flickering manouilia, but it was all the Pere had to work with and he liked it just fine), and met Rane’s eyes with his own. In the dim firelight, he was handsome and rather markedly predatory, with the deep divots of the angles of his cheeks caught in shadow and the sockets of his eyes dark beneath his brows except for the glint of the fire’s reflection. Rane felt a little lick of wariness touch her heart beneath that gaze. It was ancient, and quite dangerous, in the same way she associated with her father's people.

“We are not mercenaries, Rane,” said Roland softly. “We are gunslingers, I out of Gilead that was, and we do not take on work for wages such as a bounty hunter like you might do. We aid as we must, without payment and without quarter. And though I grant you clemency for your ignorance, know that going forward.”

Rane nodded, and when she spoke, her voice was a little faint. “Okay. Sure, yeah. Sorry.”

“We want your help, sugar,” said Susannah. Eddie had deposited her on the floor, and now she hopped towards Rane with the same quick, deft motion as ever, using her hands to propel her forward. “We got a pretty big job to do, and you might could give us a hand, is what we're hoping.”

“What’s this big job, exactly?”

“The Calla is set on once every thirty years or so by creatures we call Wolves,” said Callahan, leaning forward. “Remember when I spoke to you of how the Calla-Folken only birth in twos? Well, the Wolves, they steal one of each pair, you ken, and take ‘em away into Thunderclap, to the far east. And there they perform unnatural horrors upon them, the likes of which we can’t fathom, nor wish to.”

Rane recoiled. “ _Christ_. Sorry,” she added quickly, as Callahan cast her an unimpressed look. “Do they kill them?”

“Not from the sounds of it,” said Jake grimly. “Sounds like they experiment, take whatever they need, then send them back home ruined.”

Rane looked between them. “ _Ruined_?”

“Aye. You’ll see ‘em for yourself should you stay around, but it’s something to behold,” Callahan said grimly. “They come back with most of their minds sucked away for whatever purpose, and then live the rest of their short lives in pain and stupidity. Whatever makes them human, it’s taken from them in Thunderclap. Whatever makes them _them_ , you ken.”

Rane stared at Callahan, her mouth turned down, a little horrified. “ _Why_?”

“They don’t know.” Callahan shook his head. “Simple as that.”

“Jesus Christ. _Sorry_ , sorry,” Rane added hastily as Callahan sketched yet another cross before him, looking annoyed. “It’s just a habit, I swear to . . well, I swear,” she finished ruefully.

“I do enjoy me a blasphemer here and there,” Eddie remarked, looking thoroughly amused. 

“The Wolves, as they are called, will set upon the Calla in a moon of days, to their telling,” said Roland, leaning over and meeting Rane’s eyes. “We will speak of them more, in the days to come, and tell you what we know, but -”

“Why do you want me to help you? Why are _you_ helping, anyways?”

“Because it’s our duty,” said Jake. “Because we’re gunslingers, and we’re bound to. Right, Roland?”

Roland nodded once, still watching Rane closely. "When they come for the children, we mean to make a stand. It'll be dangerous, and I can't promise you'll leave here on your own two feet, know that much, but I sense you're well versed when it comes to fighting, and that's more than I can say for these farming folken I've encountered so far. They've got the gumption, but not the hands or the eyes for the job."

Rane nodded, chewing her lip. At length she sighed, rubbing her face with both hands, her sword clanking against the wooden pew gently with her movement.

“Well, I don’t sling guns,” she said at length. “I sling a sword. And frankly, I'm used to being compensated for my troubles.”

" _Compensated_?" Eddie looked a little outraged. "Look, lady, we aren't here to ask you if you'll smoke a horse thief in Cochise County for us or something -"

“The weapon you favor does not much matter to me,” interrupted Roland quietly, watching her. “As for payment . . .” He shrugged, as if to say, _it is what it is_. "I won't offer you that. It's not how this works."

Rane sighed roughly. “If we're being honest, I've spent the last few years fighting, mister, and the idea of jumping into another one doesn’t exactly grab me, especially one I've got no stake in.”

“Yet the fight found you nonetheless,” said Roland steadily. His blue eyes were unflinching against hers. “It’s ka.”

“What the hell is ka?”

“Something else that will be explained to you in time.”

“You people are so fucking _cryptic_!” Rane snapped suddenly, flaring. “What makes you think I give a shit about _any_ of this? I mean, I just woke up in some weird place after getting shot to death, I'm pretty sure, and now a bunch of hired guns are asking me to help them get rid of - !”

“As I said, we are no hired guns,” said Roland Deschain, and though his voice was not raised, the authority in his tone was perilous, hushing Rane at once. “You may have engaged in that business, in whatever where and when you came from, but we, here, do not. You must understand that, do ya, if we are to continue.”

Rane sank back, watching him. The two of them eyed each other for a long moment.

“What are they?” Rane asked at last. “The Wolves? Are they really _wolves_?”

“No,” said Callahan at once, shaking his head. “They’re like men, sort of, but they wear masks. We palavered long about the subject just yesterday, I'm sure sai Deschain will tell you all that was said.”

Rane met Roland’s eyes. “Can they be killed?”

Roland shrugged, shifting his weight. “Otherwise, I do not believe these Calla-folken would have bothered treating with us in the first place.”

Rane sighed, rubbing her face again. “Well, I guess I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“‘Oice! ‘Ane!” said Oy.

Rane recoiled, staring at Oy with utter bewilderment.

“Did . . . did he just -?”

“He’s a billy-bumbler,” said Jake, looking amused. “He talks, sometimes. Oy, go to her.”

Oy did, trotting over to Rane and hopping lithely onto the pew at her side. He placed his paws on her thigh and stretched his long neck up to sniff her face, his gold-ringed eyes acute. Susannah was amused at the way Rane leaned away from him warily, like a picnicker being assailed by a particularly solicitous bumblebee. After a moment Oy sat back, seemingly satisfied with his assessment.

“‘Ane,” he repeated. "Oy!"

"That's his name," Susannah told her, smirking a little.

Rane laughed a little wildly. “Can I pet him?” she asked Jake reticently.

Jake inclined his head. Rane reached out tentatively, sure she was about to get bitten, but the bumbler extended his head into her palm. His fur was coarse and thick, and he relished her fingertips on his head for a moment before leaping away from her nimbly and trotting back to Jake. Rane laughed, low.

“Cute and weird,” she remarked.

“ _Weird_!” Oy agreed. Jake laughed, too.

“Think he likes you.”

"What say you, Rane?" asked Roland. "I'd know."

"I think I need to give it some thought," said Rane, looking at him squarely. "If it's all the same to you. The way the Pere says, I've got a month to decide, right?"

"If the Calla will have you," said Roland, a little wryly, stroking his chin and eyeing her. "I estimate you're a foreigner here without many resources, though, and from my judging, the next place with a bed and clean water is some fifty wheels behind. And those ones were far less genial than these," he added grimly.

With this, he got to his feet, gesturing. Eddie, Susannah and Jake, who had been sitting on the far pew together, lifted their faces to this.

“Pere, you spoke of a meeting.”

“Aye, and it’s high time.” Callahan straightened his collar. “All of you lot, come. Rane, I believe you ought to stick close to Roland and his tet, if it serves. They’ll want to know what purpose you bring, and if you show them you’re together -”

“We’re not together yet, Pere,” said Roland grimly, “but I agree. Rane, you’re with us unless I tell you otherwise, while we mingle with these people.”

Rane wasn't terribly impressed with being ordered around by this man who she'd met not four hours ago - she'd spent the last three years taking directives from no one except for herself - but she nodded anyway, deciding against argument for the nonce. He was right, in any case; there was no where else for her to go at this very moment, and until she figured out how to proceed, it seemed fortuitous enough to have landed squarely in the hospitality of this little village, Wolves or no. “Okay.”

“Come on, then. Let’s get moving.”


	5. Meeting the Calla

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tet - and Rane - greet with their steads

_You seem tired today_

_Were you up all night afraid of what the future might bring?_

_I feel fine today_

_I've had dreams of you in places I've not seen before_

_You get so carried away_

_Like lovers new to bodies first to touch you here_

_This ain't a getaway_

_You built walls around your heart to try to lock it in._

  * **The Heavy**



* * *

The road to town - what Roland Deschain and his buddies called the Calla - was long, desolate and strangely silent, and as the five of them plodded down the street (save for Susannah Dean, who was being rolled along by her man in the oiled dirt), Rane began to feel some deep, strange sensation at the bottom of her mind. It was ominous, difficult to put a finger on, like a cloud drifting over the sun, seeming to fill her from her scuffed boots to the top of her head. She felt gooseflesh ripple along her arms, felt the slow march of her heartbeat rise to a thumping canter beneath the ragged black blouse she wore, souvenir of a city in some other place and time. She was walking at the back of the pack, a touch behind Eddie and Susannah, and she felt the need to say something - to draw attention to this curious sensation of some large, augural thing approaching - but she found she didn’t need to. Eddie glanced back, meeting her gaze, and she saw the same low fright in his eyes.

“You feel fucky, all of a sudden?” she asked him bluntly. She hardly knew this man from Adam - she’d met him a half-day prior, and even then for twenty minutes on the outside - but she said it nevertheless, her hazel eyes flicking between his dark ones. “Walking down this road, I mean?”

“Yeah, feels fucky, alright,” he muttered, nodding.

“What is it?"

“I dunno, but trust me on this one, you get used to it eventually. This type of shit is sort of par for the course over here.” Eddie shrugged, this somewhat dismissive motion at odds with the disquieted expression on his face. "I'm sure we'll find out, whatever it is."

"Speak for yourself, honeybunch," Susannah said, low. "I ain't _never_ gonna get used to it."

"It's almost like this place makes you . . . I dunno." Eddie cast about. "More observant, I guess. But on the underneath of your mind."

"Instinct," said Rane, inflecting it at the end a little and turning it into the barest of questions. Eddie shrugged and nodded.

"Sure, I guess that's as good a word for it as any." He lifted his voice, turning back to the road. “Where the heck is everyone, Pere?”

“Yonder.” Callahan gestured from where he was walking just ahead of Roland.

“Why are they so quiet?” Jake asked.

“I don’t think they know what to expect,” Callahan said, glancing at him. “We’re cut off here, and the outsiders we do see from time to time are the occasional peddler, harrier, gambler . . . the only others come to steal their children. They don’t take too warmly to strangers out of hand, usually, but they’ve been made well aware of what you are and why you come. Save you, sai Roth,” he added, a trifle apologetically, glancing back at Rane.

“I’d just as soon you introduce us as one, so that we don’t becloud them,” said Roland. Later, looking back on this moment, Rane realized how ingenious this little trick truly was; the man had asked her to join them at the church, sure enough, and he'd taken her reticence without argument, but with that one short sentence to Callahan he had corralled her, and in the next five or six seconds, as they came around a curve in the road and clapped eyes on the 700-odd people awaiting their presence, she realized she’d also been lassoed, saddled and broken, just like that. The crowd beneath them was silent and broad and quite vast, and Rane, who had never stood before a gathering of more than a dozen in all her life, was far too tongue-tied to protest it. She’d been snared, plain and simple.

“Please ya,” said Callahan, nodding. As they strode down the hill, the crowd parted for them, departing from the road now, toward a wooden pavilion that had been erected in the middle of a grassy field nearby. They’d erected torches along the path and around this platform, and in the final red glare of the setting sun, the light was stark and rather lovely. The people that stood to either side watched their progress, quiet and almost reverent. Rane understood that their deference was for Roland, more so than any of his companions, and had a moment to wonder about him. About who he was, and where he came from, and why these strangers, born ages and miles away, looked at him this way.

The weight of the eyes on them was heavy, and when the crowd had at last allowed them passage to the pavilion - still quite markedly silent, save the rasping coughs here and there in the dusty dusk - a broad-shouldered man in a spiffy Stetson stepped out of the fore and accompanied Callahan onto the wooden platform. Rane stopped with the rest of them, feeling wildly out of her element as she watched the two men climb the steps and turn to face the masses that awaited them. It occurred to her with sudden alarm that they were all about to get onto that stage and stand in front of this multitude of strangers, herself included.

_What in the blue fuck am I_ doing _here_? her mind raved. _I just woke up here seven hours ago, so what am I_ doing _, getting on stage in front of a bunch of strangers? What am I_ doing?

She felt a sharp and almost insurmountable urge to cry off, and got as far as opening her mouth to beg for clemency from Roland, who stood by her side - _I shouldn't be up there with you guys, I'm just a stranger, they don't need to see me_ , something to that effect - but his hand grasped her upper arm before she could. He didn’t speak, and didn’t need to; his eyes on hers were communicative enough.

_You dassn’t flee now_ , his gaze said, quite clearly. _You dare not run yellow. Not on the brink of it. Not in front of all of these people._

There was a little platform near the pavilion atop which a crude band sat, and with their banjo and their mandolin they wouldn’t have looked out of place in an episode of Lonesome Dove. They, as well as the rest of the crowd, were watching Stetson with acute vigilance, and Rane had a curious insight: this guy was the Big Farmer in Town, whoever he was. Maybe that explained the fancy hat and the lordly demeanor.

In one hand the man held a long, billowy feather. He lifted it up, and the crowd quieted at once. Roland didn’t glance backwards at his companions, but he made his way up the pavilion steps nevertheless, quite cool, and Jake, Eddie (now clutching Susannah against one hip) and Oy all followed him. Rane, feeling a touch of reproach at being put into this absurd position, did as well, falling into step behind Eddie and clasping her hands behind her back, her gaze drawn helplessly to the eyes upon them in the fading dusk light.

“I’m Wayne Overholser, of Seven-Mile Farm,” the Stetson-wearing rancher announced in a ringing voice. He spoke quickly and confidently, like a man used to being heard without trying too terribly hard. “Hear me now, I beg.”

There was a rumble of response to this, though Rane didn’t catch it. It sounded like _we say thankee_ , though she had never heard such a turn of phrase before. Overholser turned and swept a calloused palm towards the six of them behind him.

“We men of the Calla heard Tian Jaffords, George Telford, Diego Adams and all others who would speak at the Gathering Hall,” Overholser went on. “There, as we spoke o’ the Wolves coming each generation, the Old Fella - Pere Callahan, do ya - says to us, ‘there are gunslingers north of us.”

A little murmur from the crowd.

“And gunslingers they are, from what we saw, when we sent a party to greet with ‘em and tell ‘em our woes. They’re of Eld’s line, as they say.”

Another mutter at this, a trifle more stout, and not a few smatterings of scant applause.

“Gods be praised!” someone shouted in the crowed. “Gods’ve sent em to us to save our babbies!”

Overholser waited for them to settle before going on. “They can speak for themselves - and must - but I’ve seen enough to believe they may be able to help with our problem. Set my watch and warrant on it, say thankya.”

This, at last, drew a few cheers. Though Rane knew they weren’t for her, she took a little heart in them nevertheless.

“All right, then, let ‘em stand before’ee one by one, that ye might hear their words and see their faces very well. This is their dinh.” He lifted a hand to Roland.

Roland stepped forward, and Rane found herself watching him, fascinated despite her anxiety about being here before these hundreds of people. His motions were practiced, easy, not the least bit nervous, and the setting sun’s red light cast his countenance into sharp resolution. He put out one leg, letting his bootheel thud against the boards, and with one hand extended he bowed deep. The gesture was exaggerated - almost absurdly so - but it was also strangely fetching, strangely enchanting, as Rane was sure it was meant to be.

“Roland of Gilead,” he said in a ringing voice, “son of Steven. The Line of Eld. May we all be well met.”

He stepped back at this, glancing at Eddie, who took a hesitant step forward, looking profoundly uneasy.

“Eddie Dean, of New York.” he said. “Son of Wendell. Line of the Eld. The Ka-Tet of Nineteen.”

Susannah was next, moving to the edge of the platform, straightening and throwing her head back with a flourish of courage Rane found herself rather admiring.

“I am Susannah Dean, wife of Eddie, daughter of Dan, the Line of the Eld, the Ka-Tet of Nineteen, may we be well met and do ya fine.”

With this she curtsied, holding out invisible skirts around her thighs. Rane was surprised into laughter at this, as were the Calla-folken.

Jake came forth now, placing his foot out as Roland had and bowing deep. “I’m Jake Chambers, son of Elmer, the Line of the Eld, the Ka-Tet of the Ninety and Nine.”

Rane watched him curiously as he moved back again. Ninety and nine? Hadn’t the rest of them said Nineteen?

This concern was swept neatly away, however, as Oy, staggering a little, rose to his hind feet and actually bowed to the Calla-folken, his squiggly tail switching back and forth as he struggled to keep his balance. After a moment, he spoke three words in his raspy little voice.

“Oy! Eld! Thankee!”

This said, he dropped to all fours and scurried back to Jake’s heel. The applause at this last was thunderous and startlingly loud, making Rane flinch a little. And now, as it began to die away, Overholser looked over at Rane, who blanched a little. It was clear he didn’t recognize her, and with good reason; when he had first met with these gunslingers, she had likely been lying insensible in some rice field nearby, freshly cast out of some other place for reasons she still didn't understand.

But beneath the eyes of so many (Roland Deschain's not least among them), Rane felt she had to at least make an effort. She took a step forward, placed her boot heel before her as Roland had, and bowed as deeply as he, casting a hand out before her. Being a woman, she had an idea that she was meant to curtsy instead like Susannah had, but once it was done, it was done, and the curious glances that she drew told her she’d probably fucked that bit up. Oh, well. Wasn't the first time she'd gaffed in front of strangers.

“Rane Roth,” she said. “Daughter of Wade, line of the Eldar. The Ka-Tet of Nineteen.”

This last she added because it seemed in solidarity, even though she didn't know what it meant, but she was surprised how . . . well, how _right_ it sounded, coming from her mouth. How it fit. There was another round of applause - Rane rather suspected most of these accolades were still riding on Oy's coattails, and was not displeased to be placed outside of the limelight - then Overholser was stepping to the fore, pressing Rane backwards and snatching the attention as he was clearly wont to do.

“Alright, alright, thankee, thankee! And now we welcome our guests, and show ‘em the sort of place they’re aidin’, do it please ya!”

The applause was thunderous at this, and Rane saw a few worn hats tossed into the air.


	6. The Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland and his ka-tet enjoy the hospitality of the Calla

_Got to be more careful when you walk the street alone_

_‘Cause hiding in the shadows might be the devil you don't know_

_Got to be more careful, everything you say_

_Don't wanna hear your words repeated_

_All twisted round the other way._

  * **Jon Cleary**



* * *

Although still reticent and a trifle suspicious of the place and the company she’d found herself dropped into, Rane Roth was quite taken by Calla Bryn Sturgis almost from the first. The town was ramshackle and small, in spite of the rather massive crowd that had gathered around them - Callahan assured her when she asked that most of the domiciles lay beyond the borders of town proper, on the rich ranch lands spread across what he called the Crescent - but the little party they’d put together for the gunslingers was quite ornate nonetheless, with strung lights and loud music and lively company. There were long tables laden with food and drink - fruit wine, thick joints of beef, poultry, pozole, maize, bread, and - most especially - rice, as well as some sort of strong, dark ale called graf. The band kicked off once the six of them were off the pavilion and the applause had died away, striking up a cheery, jangling tune, and though Rane wasn’t about to say so, not after the deep heartache she’d lived with for the past few years, this was easily the happiest she’d been in ages, with these pleasant people around her and everyone wanting to shake her hand and sing her praises.

It became quickly apparent that the older folks were the only ones to be seated to dine, taking spots on the long wooden seats at the tables erected; the rest of the Calla - and their guests - took their meals on the move, carrying crude clay plates and mingling. After the speech was finished, Roland approached Rane bearing a tin cup and thrust it toward her.

“Drink,” he commanded softly.

“What the hell was _that_?” Rane asked him, ignoring this for the nonce. She flung a hand backwards toward the pavilion. “You shanghaid me up there with you guys in front of all these people! I don’t even know what the hell the tet of nineteen _is_ , for Christ’s sake!”

Roland ignored this, pressing the cup into her hands “Drink,” he repeated steadily. “In company, it’s polite.”

Rane snatched the cup from him, still eyeing him distastefully. “What is this, anyway?”

“Rhei bitters,” Roland informed her, lifting his chin. “Do you know rhei?”

Rane shook her head, sipping at the drink. It was fiercely potent, but aromatic and rather good. 

“Tastes like rhubarb to me.”

“Mayhap that’s the word for it, elsewhere.” He gestured. “Drink. But not too deeply, do it please you. I’ll not have you knee-walking drunk among this crowd.”

Rane took another sip, watching Roland. “Why’d you do that?”

“Because had I not, you’d have lost face,” said Roland frankly. “Whatever happened to you in your when, it lessened your nerve, I’d surmise. I can’t have you slackening before these folken.”

Rane lowered her cup, meeting his eyes with real affront. “You thought I was going to make you _look_ bad?”

“If you like.” Roland’s expression was quite neutral.

Rane shifted her weight, scoffing. “Roland, you really don’t have much of a bedside manner about you, has anyone ever told you that?”

“You’ll stay close to me,” Roland told her, ignoring this last. “Eddie, Jake and Susannah can handle themselves. I’d have you appear near to us, although you aren’t just yet.”

“Oh man, the compliments just keep on coming,” said Rane dryly, and threw back the rest of her bitters with a wince. This done, she slapped the tin can onto a nearby table and snatched up a cup of graf, which was so strong that even the smell brought tears to her eyes. Roland watched this with a touch of dismay but said nothing. “What are we supposed to be doing here, exactly?”

“Answering questions, like as not.”

“What about the part where I don’t know jack shit about what’s happening? I can’t tell these people anything except what you guys have told me, which is next to nothing.”

“I’ll do the talking.”

“So what’s the point of me being here at all? I haven’t even decided whether or not I want to stick around for this. I told you that back at the church.”

But even as Rane said this, she realized that it wasn’t true, not after what Roland had pulled on that pavilion. She was dug in like a tick now; if she lit out for the territories, these people would speak of her cowardice in the face of battle, and her not-inconsiderable pride could not abide that. And much besides, she hadn’t the veriest clue where she’d go anyways, with no horse, no bearings and no supplies. Roland was eyeing her shrewdly, clearly aware of most or all of these things, comfortable in the knowledge that he’d cornered her.

“I’ll talk,” he repeated. “You’ll look and listen. Do you understand?”

“What am I supposed to be, your arm candy? Just stand there all demure and agree with whatever you say?”

Roland wasn’t embarrassed by this stab in the slightest. “You are my cohort. So behave as such.” He leaned forward a little, his pale blue eyes on hers. “And being what you are, I’d have you pay close attention to what’s said about the Wolves. Mayhap there’s something to be learned that we’ve missed.”

“Like what?”

Roland tapped her temple with one finger. Rane recoiled a little, frowning irritably. “That’s your job, sai Roth. Be true and keep your eyes and ears open.”

The questions about what was going to be done about the Wolves came hard and fast, and Rane, who had been told the bare bones about what they did and why they came some hour prior, was quite unprepared to answer any of them. So, as it transpired, she became quite grateful for Roland’s presence before the night had ended, because he was indeed the one doing most of the talking, just as he’d promised. Eddie, Susannah and Jake had all ventured off on their own, clearly seasoned enough to treat with the Calla’s residents on their own.

And as they strode around the group of people, Rane noticed a rather annoying thing: these people were indeed assuming she was some sort of paramour to Roland, and worse, he was allowing them to. Twice he was asked what his “kept lady” was called, and both times he gave her name with impunity, not bothering to correct them nor wasting a glance at her. After the third one went traipsing off (not before giving Roland an approving wink), she looked up at him irritably.

“Can you stop letting them walk away thinking I’m your . . . your _concubine_ , or something, please?” she said waspishly. She was liking this guy less and less as the night wore on. “It doesn’t exactly sit well with me.”

Roland paused to light a cigarette, popping a match alight with his thumbnail, before waving it out and looking down at her.

“I don’t care what sits well with you,” he told her frankly, meeting her eyes without the slightest discomfiture. “I care what sits well with these good folken, and if it will help them kindle to us if they assume that the two women in my company are only here because they warm a bed, then let them think so.”

“Well, that’s all fine and well,” said Rane, her voice low and fierce, leaning towards him a little and meeting his eyes with her own, “but I’ve spent a lot of years getting good at what it is I do, and I didn’t bust my ass like that so I could mingle with a bunch of backwoods yokels and pretend to be some dude’s shack job. I don’t particularly care whether or not these people are a little bit uncomfortable with it.”

“Yes,” said Roland, leaning down a little so that their faces were nearer, “but I _do_ care. I believe we might have a misunderstanding if you believe I would coddle your ego, sai Roth.”

Rane watched him a moment, a little dismayed. She had always enjoyed a rather commanding countenance which most men caved beneath when she applied the right pressure, but this one was quite unyielding, and she saw in his face that he would not bend to her whim so simply as all that. She fell back.

“I just . . . I don’t like that character assassination shit, that’s all,” she muttered. The words sounded sulky and lame even to her own ears, and Roland leaned back, clearly accepting this as the defeat that it was.

“I haven’t any doubt, but this is beyond pride and hubris. Take your place at my side and behave yourself. Your job is to listen and learn and put their minds at ease, not to prance and peacock. Mouth shut, see much, say little. Do you understand?”

He’d no sooner said this than a farmer approached them, pulling a lovely young woman along with him. He was rough-faced and sunburned, perhaps only a few years older than Rane herself, and the lady - most certainly his wife, Rane thought - was pretty and dark-skinned, though whether ethnic or scorched by long hours beneath the open skies Rane wasn’t sure. Both were smiling broadly, their eyes dancing with both hopeful enthusiasm and lots and lots of alcohol. They were tailed by another, this one white-haired, older and taller than his counterpart, wearing a pair of garish and slightly ridiculous white tasseled chaps. Rane’s first thought upon seeing this guy was that he resembled a wizened, grim-faced Sean Connery, although what Eddie remarked of him later that night - _bastard is the spitting image of Pa Cartwright, if you ask me_ \- was far more apt.

The younger farmer tripped forward and tapped his throat, beaming.

“Long days and pleasant nights, sai Deschain,” he said. “And to you, as well, sai Roth.”

It was the first time Rane had heard her own name repeated back to her since she’d been on stage before the Calla - everyone else had asked Roland for it, despite the fact that she’d announced it to all of them - and it warmed her toward the farmer considerably. Roland offered the man a little bow.

“And may you have twice the number, sai. Rane, this is Tian Jaffords and his wife Zalia, do it please ya.”

“And I’m George Telford,” the older man said, sweeping off the oilskin rancher’s hat he wore and tapping his throat. “May you do well, sai gunslinger.”

Rane noted the singular use of this last word, as well as the man’s complete lack of acknowledgement of her, and though Roland had admonished her only moments before, she couldn’t quite deny herself a loud, pointed clearing of the throat. Telford’s eyes went to her as he palmed the hat back onto his head, looking long-suffering and perhaps a tad indulgent, as if she were a toddler tugging at the hem of his jeans or something. Rane eyed him over her cup of graf.

“And long days and pleasant nights to you as well, my pretty lass. Hav’ese old eyes ever seen such beauty in the Arc before? Your consort’s the talk of the night, sai Deschain, the menfolk can’t hardly keep their eyeballs to their good selves, can they, Tian?”

Tian flushed red to the roots of his hair. Zalia cast Telford an almost comically revolted look.

“George Telford, hav’ee no sense at all?” she asked him sharply.

“I’m not Roland’s consort,” said Rane, unable to stop herself. This little stunt - some old man saying that a bunch of strangers had been eye-fucking her all evening like she ought to be complimented by it - was the last straw. “I think there may be some confusion, I just felt I should maybe clear that up.”

Roland didn’t react to this - indeed, he continued to watch Telford at his ease, smoking a cigarette, one hand linked in his belt - but she could feel, quite clearly, the vexation baking off of him at this pronouncement. She suspected that he would show her the rough side of his tongue for this in the fullness of time.

“Oh, cry pardon, cry pardon,” said Telford at once, shaking his head and lifting both hands before him palms out. “I meant no offense, sai Roth, so I didn’t.”

“Well, this one takes it quick, it would seem,” said Roland dryly, glancing at Rane with one eyebrow cocked. “Though she likes to show hard, she appears to be a bit delicate on the underside. Sai Roth is new to our company,” he went on, as Rane opened her mouth, looking resentful. “She is capable, though, and fitted as any one of the rest of us.”

“I never heard of a woman gunslinger,” Telford remarked. For his part, he looked relatively unruffled by Rane’s indignation, as well as Zalia’s.

“No?” Roland sounded equally composed.

“Nay, nor a boy not yet old enough to shave, for that matter. Even a ‘prentice. Let alone one carryin’ that sort of cutlass,” he added, gesturing at Rane’s sword with his chin. “I thought them of the Eld carried hard caliber like that’un on your belt, sai.”

“The tools we use have no bearing on what we are,” said Roland simply.

Tian, a little haltingly, said, “mightn’t we glance it, sai Roth? I’ve never seen such a thing.”

And now, something interesting happened. Rane, who considered herself a solo act to the dregs, found herself looking up at Roland, requesting permission from him with her eyes. She had never done such a thing with a stranger she’d met not a day past - indeed, she could count on one hand the number of men and women she’d deferred to in all her long, strange lifetime - but she did it nonetheless, searching his gaze for approval, despite the fractious way she had defied him minutes before. It was in the space of those five or six seconds, as her gaze met his, that she began to see him as her dinh, though she didn’t know that word for what it meant yet and would not learn it for some time. Roland saw this deference in her face and approved; despite the feral nature of this young woman, he was now beginning to bring her into his fold, and it was a heartening thing to see, especially so soon. He had expected a fight, and hadn’t been disappointed, but ka was far more obdurate than she, and it would win out each and every time.

He nodded slightly at her, and in his gaze Rane felt a little touch of something like encouragement - _go on and_ _show them what they’ve got in their hand, and what havoc you can wreak, should the pleasure take you_.

“Sure, you guys can have a dekko,” said Rane, and then, with a quick, lithe motion she drew her sword with a clang and twirled it around her wrist thrice, so fast it was difficult to trace, the blade throwing off the changing colors of the torchlight and whistling through the air. Telford, Tian and Zalia all leapt back, surprised, and Telford actually gave a little squeak of shock. This garish display completed, Rane tossed the blade into the air, letting it flip twice, and caught it deftly in the flats of both palms, extending it out for their scrutiny. There was a smattering of surprised applause from a few nearby patrons who’d caught sight of this, and Rane flushed a little.

“Man Jesus and all the saints!” Zalia exclaimed, laughing a little wildly. “Did’ee see _that_?”

“Christ, but ain’t it somethin’?” Tian agreed, touching the worn leather hilt. His fingers traced over the Tengwar engraved near the base of the blade. “What’s that, then?”

“That’s my name, in the language of my father’s people,” said Rane. She let her own finger slide over the script, reading slowly as she did. “‘Rane Gwendolyn Roth, she of Vanyar.’ That’s what it says.”

“As you can see, she knows how to use her weapon,” said Roland, still smoking and watching all this with an expression of faint amusement. “As do we all.”

“Well, _anybody_ can swing a blade fancy-like, so they can,” said Telford, sounding a little dismissive, but his face had drained of color a bit. “Why, my own pa had a scimitar such as the likes of that’n - _bigger_ , even, says I! - and could do all manner of trickery with it when the wind took him.”

Rane considered challenging this snub with another piece of overly ostentatious swordplay - have the boasty bastard huck something at her, maybe, so she could cut it out of the air - but a single glance at Roland told her that her theatrics had arrived at the limits of his patience, and she sheathed her blade once again with a clang.

“Well, I guess we all play to our strengths,” she said, shrugging and eyeing Telford.

“Aye, that we do.”

“Please, sai, what do you and yours mean to do? To help us, I mean?” Tian was looking between Roland and Rane, his face long. “For Zalia and I, we’ve wee ones who we’re at pains to keep, if it please ya.”

Rane thought personally that they likely had far more stake in this than Telford, who looked much too old to have children at risk. This pair, though . . . they were only a few years past her, and looked to be in just the right spot. Or the wrong one, she supposed, given the circumstances.

“That remains to be seen,” said Roland. “My friends and I have much to discuss, and much to learn, before we settle upon a strategy. Your lands are unfamiliar to us, you ken, and until we have a look at what we’re dealing with, not even I can say for certain how we’ll take this on.”

“Hav’ee ever used that iron on your hip, sai? Tell me, I beg.”

Rane glanced at Telford, surprised by this. She could understand him questioning whether or not _she_ knew what she was doing with the blade on her belt - she was young, female, and had spent most of the evening pretending to be Roland’s blushing escort, after all - but _Roland_? Rane had known him for a very short time indeed, but she would not have gone toe to toe with the man for all the riches in this world or any other; it could not have been inherently clearer that the guy was a force to be reckoned with. She could have chalked up Telford’s lack of perception to simple small-town ignorance, but she believed something a little lower was at work here: the man knew good and well what Roland was, and what the legends perhaps said he was capable of, but he had been prepared to stand aside and let these Wolves take the Calla’s children as they did every generation, without making a stand against them. He didn’t like that these strangers were here fucking up their status quo like this, and he meant to be an asshole to them about it, in as quiet a way as he could manage.

Roland’s mild expression still hadn’t changed - he was even smiling a little - but the chill that baked off of him in that moment was palpable to all of them. The cold icy blue of his eyes falling on Telford seemed to speak leagues all their own - _you would doubt me, stranger, even knowing what you do? Even knowing what I am and from whence I come_? Zalia shrunk a little against Tian.

“I have,” he said. He flicked one hand toward the horizon, a gesture Rane had never seen before. “ _Delah_.”

There was some more talk, but not much - Roland’s last pronouncement on the subject of his weapon seemed to chasten everybody and still the looser tongues amongst their company - and Rane wasn’t sorry when Telford finally meandered off and left them alone. Zalia and Tian spoke on their farm, and offered up their home to the gunslingers if it was needed, something Roland seemed quite willing to entertain. They seemed like good folks, talking about their many children (all twins save for the youngest, by their telling), and Rane found herself looking after them rather fondly when they finally walked off, arm in arm, in search of more booze, like as not.

“’Twas that one, Tian, who kindled the Calla to us in the first place,” Roland remarked, lifting his chin at their departing forms. “He wouldn’t say so, I gather - he strikes me as far too biddable - but he’s the reason we’re here at all, helping these people to get up on their hind legs. Spoke on it before his town’s council and the big ranchers, the way I was told. What do you make of sai Telford?”

This last was added almost as an afterthought, and Rane, who was still watching Zalie and Tian depart, was taken off guard and startled into an honest answer, as was surely Roland’s intention.

“A big mouth on a small mind,” she said frankly, and glanced at him at once, looking a little self-conscious. “Fuck, that was rude of me to say, wasn’t it?”

“Perhaps. Honest, though.” Roland was stroking his chin, watching her. “Does it vex thee, to speak coarsely of others?”

“Not particularly.”

“Hmm.” Roland was still eyeing her with a rather knowing expression. Rane met his gaze again, turning her face up a little to do so; he was very tall, outstripping her by some six inches or so.

“I’m not terribly fond of the way you’re looking at me right this very second.”

“A woman so lovely ought to be used to unwelcome eyes. Hav’ee not met with them all evening? That was Telford’s telling, at least.”

Though this was stated with dry amusement, Rane felt herself flush nevertheless and turn her eyes away from him. Roland wasn’t much given to humor, but there was definite beguilement dancing in his gaze now.

“That’s a backhanded-ass compliment, if it was a compliment at all,” Rane told him.

“Mayhap it is.” Roland straightened, touching her shoulder. “Come. Doesn’t do us favors standing about.”

As the moon climbed higher into the sky, the music grew louder and the graf flowed, and soon there was dancing. By this time, despite Roland’s warnings, Rane was deep in drink, as were Eddie and Susannah, and her reticence had departed her quite entirely. She was having fun, _real_ fun, for the first time in she didn’t even know how long . . . the years that had stretched on after Arthur Morgan had perished by her side in Ambarino had been grim and bleak, presenting her only with alcohol and hunting her bounties to occupy her mind. Often, between haunting both saloons and the footsteps of her quarry, she had considered stopping her own heart rather than waiting for the excruciating passage of time to do so for her, and in that time there had certainly been no revelry. Rane had thought she was rather taken by the charm of the Calla earlier that night, but she could safely say that she was somewhat in love with it now.

She danced as much as any of the rest of them, having a go with Jake, Eddie and Susannah several times (the latter twirling around elegantly in her chair and laughing wildly) as well as a slew of eager, slightly slack-jawed Calla-folken. She even danced a song or two with Roland himself, who was the only one out of any of the rest who clutched her waist and drew her close to him without diffidence. On the last round - a slow, melancholic and somewhat ribald tune about a woman lusting after a man, so deep in the Calla’s argot that Rane could scarcely understand some of it - he drew her so near to him that her face was nestled in the hollow of his shoulder, and the smell of him, tobacco and sweat and something else that was essentially _Roland_ , she thought, was very powerful and pleasant. It was strange - had she danced this way with anyone, since her days at school? Rane thought not - but she was rather comfortable so near to this man, as strange and clearly dangerous as he was. Probably booze, but still. In any case, she’d not felt the touch of another in such a way since some three years past. After Arthur, she’d shut herself away even from the most arbitrary saloon meeting. It was just a friendly dance with this stranger, sure, but she was still happy to indulge in it, and she could feel her body responding with enthusiasm to his warm palms on the small of her back and the gentle brush of his lean hips against her own, warm and vital and very _present_ , somehow.

Roland, speaking from her temple, his voice low and rough: “Do I frighten you?”

The honest answer was yes - the man was a little terrifying, in all honesty - but Rane wasn’t feeling particularly frightened just that very moment. What she felt was drunk and loose and rather comfortable, nestled against him in his arms, relishing his nearness. She shook her head against the roughness of his vest, her hands strung about his neck.

“Why do you ask?”

“I feel your heart. It goes quick, do ya.”

Rane was abruptly aware of exactly how closely she had pressed herself against Roland’s chest as they waltzed amongst the Calla-folken. Something about this - about a man so close to her that he could feel the beat of her very heart, something no one had gotten near enough to her to experience since Arthur was alive - was a trifle embarrassing, making her feel strangely vulnerable and exposed. She drew away from him at once, looking up and meeting his gaze. His expression was quite mild, but his pale blue eyes flicked between her own with a quickness that spoke to his own faint anxiety.

“I’m - no, I’m fine.”

“I’ve aggrieved you. For that I’m sorry.” Roland, for his part, looked genuinely chastened. “Will’ee not join me once again? I’ll say no more on the matter, if you wish it of me.”

Rane watched him, her dark hair wavering before her face. Roland stood before her, one calloused hand outstretched towards her, and in the changing light of the torches around them he looked handsome and strangely lonely, with his lean hips and the big revolver hung on his belt. Rane took another step back, shaking her head, very aware of the thumping of her heart beneath her black blouse, and even more aware that Roland had just felt it pounding against his own chest as they stood so close. It was strangely personal, that sensation, almost as if he’d walked in on her naked or something. And _was_ she frightened? He had asked and she had said no, but now she wondered.

“I’ll be right back,” she said, not liking the stammer in her voice, and turning strode off through the crowd, her long hair wafting after her. Roland dropped his hand, watching her go, frowning.

“ _Damn_ , Roland! You scared her off _already_?” Eddie was striding to Roland’s elbow, a cup of graf in one hand, following his dinh’s gaze. “It’s only been a few hours, I thought she might hold out a little longer than that. You got a blue ribbon on the way, you keep it up.”

“I misspoke, I suppose,” said Roland, feeling oddly out of sorts. Rane had pressed through the crowd and was vanishing now into the dark outskirts of the gathering, past where the colorful lights could follow.

“What’d you say? Girl ran away like her hair was on fire and her ass was catching, it musta been good, whatever it was.”

Roland shook his head. “Nothing. Well . . . “ He hesitated. “I asked her if she was afraid of me.”

Eddie scoffed. “And why in the blue fuck would you go and say something like that?”

“We were dancing, and I felt her heart beating.”

“Well, I’m not a doctor or anything but as far as I know, that’s what keeps us upright and sniffing the air.”

“Hard, though, and fast. Like someone a’feared.”

"And you figured that was because she was _scared_ of you? While she was all cozied up to you like that?" Eddie was looking at Roland a little shrewdly, an expression the gunslinger cared for not at all. “Did it occur to you that maybe there are other reasons a lady’s pulse might be up? Your grouchy old ass didn’t fall off the wagon yesterday, surely you realize that.”

Roland eyed him. “You’re drunk, Eddie.”

“I sure as fuck am,” Eddie agreed, lifting his cup heartily. “Don’t mean I’m wrong, though, buckaroo.”

“What do you mean?”

Eddie shrugged exaggeratedly, lifting both hands to face level. “I dunno. I’m just sayin’.”

“Just saying _what_?” Roland was annoyed.

“Just sayin’, is all. She’s a looker, ain't she?” Eddie added, and winked rather lecherously at Roland, who turned his eyes away, scowling.

“Sometimes, Eddie, your way of speaking vexes me awfully. I’d have you know how irritating it can be.”

“Hey, man.” Eddie shrugged again. “I is what I is, and I yam what I yam. Take it or leave it, pard. But she’s a pretty little thing, and I think she might have been having a little bit more fun hanging out with you than she was letting on, is all. Suze was here, she’d tell ya the same damn thing.”

With this, Eddie lifted his drink to Roland, sketched a little two-finger salute, and turning strode back toward the party, looking for his wife.

The night wore on, and though Rane kept well to herself (and pointedly far from Roland), her eyes were drawn to him frequently. He noticed it, of course - there was little he didn’t - but he did not give any indication that he did. If she thought of him in a particular way this evening, laboring beneath drink, he wouldn’t encourage it with his interested gaze; he needed her fully prepared and battle-ready before the Wolves, not soft-eyed and pining. Had he told her this, she’d have balked, and he knew it. So he stayed far away, and avoided her gaze when he felt it upon him, and he wondered. And did his eyes stray to her lean, pert form as she danced with Eddie and Jake in the center of them, a hand in each of theirs, laughing and cavorting, her cheeks flushed and her dark brows knitted? Of course they did. Most of the men’s did, matter of fact. She was a gorgeous woman, and her countenance drew many stares. It was only natural and it meant nothing. Less than nothing. Still . . . the thought of her so close to him as they waltzed among the farmers and ranchers, the pleasant weight of her head against his shoulder and the quick, faintly perceptible thump of her heart beating against his chest -

“She’s a lovely creature, your friend there,” said a voice at Roland’s side, and he started, quite uncharacteristically. “I'll tell no lies to'ee, from the moment I glanced her I thought to myself that t'were I a younger man, I'd have chased her like hell and taken her for my own, would she have me."

“She’d not,” said Roland, low, watching Rane. She was still swinging about with Jake and Eddie, performing a little drunken rendition of Ring Around the Rosies, perhaps, and a moment later the three of them fell onto their asses, all roaring laughter. Oy cavorted around them merrily, crying Jake's name and barking. “I don’t think she’d have _anyone_. But your words are kind, sai Overholser, and I’ll pass them along if you’d like.”

“Nay, nay, never think it.” Wayne Overholser was waving a hand, laughing. “I’d not have her thinking I’m that sort of man.”

_But you_ are _that sort of man_ , Roland thought grimly. Aloud, he said, “Never in life.”

“How’ee happened upon such a lovely blossom I’ll never know, but she’s stolen the hearts right from the menfolks’ chests this eve, so she has.”

Roland glanced at him, a little annoyed by this for some reason. “I happened on her only a day’s time ago, and even we have only the veriest idea where she hails from, but she doesn’t come seeking suitors, she comes for the work. That piece she carries on her belt isn't just for show, sai. Hear me, I beg.”

“Ah. Aye. O’course, gunslinger, o’course.” Overholser’s expression was maddeningly knowing. “I hear you clear, so I do.”

“Excuse me.” Roland turned without waiting for a response and strode away.


	7. The Rectory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Callahan invites his guests into the hospitality of Our Lady Serenity

_Used to run in the cemetery_

_Dance and run and sing when I was a child_

_And it never seemed strange_

_Now I just pass mournfully by_

_That place where the bones of life are piled_

_I know something has changed_

_I'm a stranger here and no one sees me e_ _xcept you._

  * **16 Horsepower**



* * *

The party was over not long after, and it was a good thing, too, because by that time most of the Calla-folken and their guests were good and schnockered. Besides Roland, who seemed like the sort of dude loathe to betray a concession of character like public intoxication, the only notable exception to this was Jake Chambers (Roland had warned him at the start of the gathering that he shouldn’t indulge, that the graf was strong and he must only take of a few sips to be polite, and naturally Jake had obeyed). The ranchers and their foremen and wives and families bade them all enthusiastic and slightly slurred farewells and goodnights and thankee-sais as they traipsed away from the dispersing crowd, and Rane felt a little flush rise in her face when Roland lifted his hand to them in a final goodbye and there was yet another smattering of drunken applause. It was sort of like being a minor celebrity, and certainly not something she had experienced in such a friendly capacity. Most of the repute she'd enjoyed in her old life had been of the decidedly negative (often criminal) variety.

While Susannah, Eddie, Roland and Rane had been invited to stay with Callahan, Jake had been instructed to kip out at the Rocking B, Vaughn Eisenhart's ranch, to learn what he could of that side of town. This seemed quite to his liking, though he seemed at pains to conceal it; during the party he’d made a friend in the son of Eisenhart's foreman, Benny Slightman the Younger, a boy his own age, and it was Rane’s immediate impression that whatever sort of life he lived with his present company, it was a tough one devoid of most of the usual rewards of childhood. Rane saw Roland take the kid’s gun before he allowed him to leave their company - to her it looked sort of like the one Cusack had carried in _Grosse Pointe Blank_ \- and thought this quite wise indeed. Even a kid as level-headed and capable as Jake would likely be tempted to show off a piece like that to a new pal.

As he departed at Benny’s side, Oy trotting at his heel, he waved a final goodbye at his companions, and Rane saw Eddie’s face fall a little bit as he returned it. His expression was wistful and a touch worried, and Rane eyed him speculatively, trying to decide if she was bold enough to ask him if Jake belonged to him. Certainly he wasn’t Roland’s, that much was clear, though she couldn’t say just why.

“Surely you’re not his dad,” she remarked. “You’re way too young.”

Eddie burst out laughing.

“I was a handful when I was thirteen, sure, but I wasn’t _that_ much of a handful,” he replied. “You must be getting the wrong impression about me or something, lady.”

Susannah was laughing a little, too. “Before you ask, he isn’t mine either, although I’d assume you noticed he and I are sorta different colors.”

“Well, what’s he doing with you guys, then? He can’t be more than eleven or twelve years old. And carrying around a big-ass gun like that, no less, not even old enough to drive yet,” she added, a trifle disapprovingly.

"Oh, child." Susannah turned in her chair and met Rane's gaze with her own high-browed one. "You jes' wait 'til you see that boy _shoot_ his big-ass gun. You'll be thinking twice about snubbing your nose at him _then_ , believe that."

“In any case, that’s a tale for another time,” said Roland from up ahead without glancing back. “We’ll tell you, sai Roth, about how each of us came to be here, but not tonight.”

Callahan was fairly relieved to hear this as he strode next to Roland down the road toward his church. It was cold enough to snow now that the wee hours of the morning had begun to draw near - as the five of them made their way toward the church, their breath puffed out before them in a white haze - and he didn’t think he was the only one who was exhausted by the night’s activity. Even Roland was silent and a touch grim as they moved, his eyes a little shadowed.

Our Lady of Serenity lay in relative shadow up ahead. Callahan’s quarters - a neat little log building behind the church that he called the rectory - was lit by faint candlelight from within. He’d mentioned he had a housekeeper, and Rane surmised she’d prepared the little dwelling for their arrival, though she didn’t seem to be in immediate evidence. Susannah and Eddie, Rane noticed, were looking rather hopefully at it, and she had a curious intuition that made her smile a little: sleeping indoors, with privacy, was perhaps a luxury the couple was rarely afforded. Callahan saw this for what it was, as well, and when he spoke he sounded a little amused.

“I’ve only the one spare room, do it please ya, so I thought perhaps Roland and I could bunk together. Though I didn’t foresee a fourth,” he added, glancing at Rane a little regretfully.

"So I can kick it on a pew or something, no biggie," Rane replied, glancing toward the church. "Trust me, I've slept in harder places and made it to sunrise just f -"

"No," said Roland at once, shaking his head. Glancing at Callahan, he added, "I'd not risk it, Pere, I cared for it not much even when we found you both inside of it this evening while the sun still hung. She's apt to make it lively."

Rane was bewildered. "Make _what_ lively?"

"You think she'd really wake it up?" Eddie asked Roland, looking a trifle uneasy. "Because of -?"

"Of what she is, yes," Roland agreed. "I don't know for a fact, but that's what my heart tells me, and I'd listen to it well when it comes to this matter."

Callahan was nodding his fervent agreement even before Roland was through. "Say true, gunslinger, say thankya." Hesitantly, he added, “sai Roth, I’d not let you sleep inside that church proper for all the gold in Arabia, as they say where I’m from.”

“Why?” Rane’s eyes flickered between Callahan’s and Roland’s. “What’s wrong with the church?”

“I’d not speak on it while the sun’s down,” Callahan replied, and before Rane could inquire any further: “Would it fash thee terribly to share with Roland and I?”

Rane shrugged, though after the somewhat awkward moment she’d shared with Roland earlier that evening, the idea of sharing sleeping quarters with the man didn’t particularly ensnare her. “Not at all. I’m just happy to be indoors.”

“You spent a lot of time outside?” Eddie asked her curiously as he lifted Suze out of her chair. “Sorta roughing it, if you know what I mean?”

“Enough.” Rane rolled her neck on her shoulders. “That was pretty rambunctious. I'm gonna be sore as hell tomorrow.”

“And on that note,” said Susannah, tapping her husband gently on the shoulder, “I believe my husband and I are gonna retire. I can barely hold my eyelids open as it is.”

“We all ought to get some rest,” Roland agreed. “We’ve far to go tomorrow, and much to do. Eddie, Susannah,” he added, “let’s not waste daylight come morning. I’ll meet you here in the church, both of you.”

“Roland, you’re worse than my mother. We’ll be up with the sun, keep your britches on,” Eddie added as he started away with Susannah, seeing Roland’s impatient glance. “Sleep good, kids. No pillow fights unless we're invited.”

  
  


RANE woke near dawn, startled up by some strange, disquieting dream. For a moment she simply lay there in the little cot Pere Callahan had erected for her, staring up at the crude wooden ceiling, allowing her heartbeat to slow somewhat as she ruminated on what she’d just seen: a snowy wood, sat on the edge of some vast, elegant city, the name of which she could _almost_ remember. It danced merrily just out of her reach. Three syllables? Four? And something else . . . a presence with her, as well, unseen but very palpable. Was it dangerous? Friendly? Possibly the former, but most _definitely_ the latter. Some sort of large, unseen force that seemed potent enough to bat her very soul from her body if it so desired. And familiar, too, though she couldn’t quite say how. Even now the details were slipping through her fingers like sand. She turned her head, her long hair pulling taut beneath her back as she did.

Roland Deschain and Callahan had kipped out together in his feather bed, placing her on the other end of the room, and as Rane looked she could see their chests rising and falling beneath the woolen blanket as they slept, one of them snoring lightly. It was a trifle amusing; the bed wasn’t very big, but the pair of them were so scrawny that you almost could have fit a third in the middle, had you so desired.

Rane got out of bed, taking care to move as silently as she could (and she was quite good at silent, thanks to her heritage), and stepping into her boots made her way out the bedroom door and onto the front steps, taking care to avoid the squeaky bits of floorboard on the way. Not that she thought she’d have much to worry about; both men had been asleep almost before their heads had hit the pillow. She hadn't been the only who'd danced her silly self stupid.

It was cold - almost bitterly cold, in fact, the sort that falls around arid desert nights sinks into your bones - and Rane wore just a worn pair of jeans and a black button-up from wherever she’d come from, not so much as an undershirt besides, but she relished it nevertheless. Callahan - or perhaps his housekeeper - kept his little domicile swelteringly warm, and the gentle breeze felt good on her forehead. She sat on the steps of the house, stretching her feet out before her, and leaned back a little on her elbows, staring up at the growing dawn sky. It was lovely, shot through with pink at the horizon and streaked with dark indigo clouds. The lay of the land reminded her of . . . well, of wherever she’d come from. The name of that place still evaded her, as deftly and frustratingly as the details of her dream had. Now, as she sat on the little rectory church, she could see among the low-slung trees the plots of ranchland, scattered with the tiny forms of cattle and sheep. Beyond that, vast crops, much like the ones she'd passed by on her way to meet the gunslingers. Beyond that even still, arroyos, mesas, and rough, stony terrain, what her father might have called paw-breaking land. Even though the name of that other place refused to come to her - nor many of the other details, which shifted behind the veil of her unconscious amorphously - the feel of it was near enough. She thought to herself, not for the first time, that there were parallels between this place and the one she’d come from, even as vague as her memory was.

And tipping her head back on her shoulders, letting her eyes rove on the darkness of the fading night, she noticed something else about the skies that wheeled overhead, something a little disquieting that she had missed the night before -

“They’re in drift, so they are,” said a low voice behind her, and Rane, so badly startled that she nearly loosed a fully fledged scream, whirled around, drawing her sword halfway from its scabbard before realizing that Roland Deschain had someone managed to sneak up behind her, silent as the grave, a cigarette dangling from his lips. In one hand he was popping alight a match, letting the flame hang before his face before waving it out. “The stars. I’d swear it on my very life.”

Rane sheathed her sword again with a soft clang, exhaling slowly and shakily. “You scared the shit out of me, Roland. I almost shanked you right there.”

“Cry pardon.” Roland gestured. “May I? I’ll sleep no more this night, myself. Far too warm inside for my tastes.”

"Yeah, Pere keeps it hotter than a pot of neck bones in there," Rane agreed, moving over a skosh and curling her legs beneath her on the steps. Roland lowered himself down on her right, and as he did so, she noticed the stiff way he clutched his hip and the way his mouth pulled down a little, pained. She rather suspected it hadn’t been the warmth indoors that had woken him, but just now didn’t mention it. He didn’t seem the sort to welcome sympathy, in any case.

"I've never heard such a turn of phrase," he said, still grimacing a little, though the look he cast her was interested indeed. "How did you call it? A bucket of neck bones? I'd hear."

Rane was amused. " _Pot_ of neck bones. I don't think you'd hear that north of Nacogdoches these days, though, it's an old one. Well . . . _those_ days . . . whatever."

"Pot of neck bones," Roland mused, smoking. Then, hilariously: "Nag-dosh-ogs-um?"

It took a lot of cheek-biting for Rane not to burst into peals of genuine laughter at this; she restrained herself because she could tell by the honestly curious way Roland had felt his way through the word that it was foreign to him and he wasn't exaggerating or trying to be funny.

"Nacogdoches. It's a city."

" _Nag_ . . ."

"Nac - cog - doches."

"Nog . . ." Roland gave up, waving this off. "I hear'ee speak that way and I'm sure you truly are from New York side. How boned do you feel this morning?"

Rane couldn't quite suppress a purse-lipped smile this time. She thought she knew what he meant, at least, though her understanding of the word was a bit different.

"Hung over, you mean?"

Roland nodded.

She shrugged. "I'm a pretty seasoned drinker, like I told you. I can take them on the chin pretty well."

"A dubious talent," said Roland dryly, squinting towards the growing dawn, one hand on his knee.

"You'll get no argument from me."

They sat in silence for a moment. Rane's eyes were drawn slowly back toward the skies above, where constellations hung that she wasn't sure she was familiar with. The angle, maybe? She could think of no other reason. She was at least partly of the Eldar, and therefore prided herself on her knowledge of the lay of the heavens.

“What did you mean when you said the stars were in drift?” she asked him, her brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”

Roland pulled another cigarette from his pocket and held it up, eyebrows lifted. “Take of it?”

She shrugged, nodding, and then Roland did something Rane found rather curious; instead of giving her the unlit smoke, he pulled the one from his lips, handed it to her, and then biting the fresh one popped another match alight, turning his head down a little and cupping the new flame against the brisk wind. Rane took his first one and drew deep. The end was still damp from his mouth - even tasted like him, a little, or how she supposed he must - and the sensation was so . . . what was it? Not _sensuous_ , exactly, although that was almost it. Personal? Familiar? She wasn’t sure, but it made her feel -

She wasn’t given much time to entertain this, however; a moment later she was coughing hoarsely, one forearm thrown across her mouth. The tobacco was incredibly strong, making her head lighten and her eyes water. Roland didn’t laugh - didn’t even smile - but there was a glimmer of something like droll amusement in his gaze as she composed herself, looking faintly embarrassed.

“That’s - wow,” Rane gasped, clutching her chest, her face red. “That’ll put hair on your chest, alright. Jesus.”

Ignoring this, Roland pulled his smoke from his lips and aimed it toward one of the brightest stars overhead them. As he did, he leaned a little closer to her, drawing flush with her line of sight, and Rane felt the heat of his tobacco-fragrant breath disturb the fine hairs at her temple. Again his shoulder brushed against her own, firm and warm and rough the way it had been against her cheek when they’d danced the night prior. The little bloom of heat that blossomed in her belly this time was far more difficult to ignore than it had been when he’d handed her that smoke, and Rane felt a swoop of shame so cutting that it was almost religious wash through her chest. Christ Almighty, she’d just met the guy twenty-odd hours prior, if that, and here she was blushing and shirking like a jenny in heat or something.

“Look thee, Rane. That bright one. Do you know it?”

Rane nodded, trying not to let anything that just happened in her head show in her face. “That’s Elemmírë. They call it Polaris too, sometimes.” She hesitated abruptly, frowning. “Or . . . well, I _think_ it is, anyway . . .”

“Mayhap it's called so in other whens and wheres. Here we call it Old Mother.” He pointed to Rane’s left a little now, drawing a small circle in the air with the end of one finger. This brought him even nearer her, much to her dismay. Rane noticed, abruptly, that the first two fingers of his right hand were missing down past the first knuckle, and made a mental note to ask him about it. “That, there, was once where she hung. Due North, never wavering, since I was a boy. Now she lies off to the West, a little. And the sun, do’ee ken, rises southerly and out of true. That’s just begun not five days past, from what we’ve noticed. It speeds as we close in, I believe, and changes course. It may even be east again tomorrow.”

Rane scoffed, uneasy. This statement left a lot of questions to pick up and thread after - _where do you come from_ , for starters, followed closely by _where are you going_ \- but these both felt a little too heavy for before the sun had risen, somehow, so she chose a simpler one, unsettled though it was.

“How is that possible?”

Roland shrugged, lowering his hand and letting it dangle between his lean knees. When he spoke again, the tobacco smoke left his lips with his words in gentle little puffs that whisked away on the breeze.

“The world has moved on. Like as not we’ll see more of its ilk.”

Rane eyed the pink of the horizon, which was now beginning to warm to a faint, glowing red, ruminating over this. After a moment she lifted one boot over her knee, scrubbed the cigarette out on its heel, then flicked it away, exhaling the final plume into the night air.

"Wish I knew what that meant."

"If you're meant as one of us," said Roland, "you will."

“What’s going to happen today?” she asked him. “Am I still with you?”

Roland glanced sidelong at her abruptly, meeting her gaze from beneath his brows. He was unshaven, a little bleary-eyed, but the acuity of his gaze was unmistakable.

“Before I answer, I’d have you know I never meant to speak callow to thee, last night,” he said, low. The frankness - indeed, the composure - with which he said this was a little undoing. “If I spoke out of turn, then I cry your pardon. Will’ee give it me?”

Rane nodded, meeting his gaze, disarmed by this sudden apology. “You didn’t, Roland, it’s fine. I was just . . . just drunk and being stupid.”

She thought he might know better - in fact, she thought he might have even known what was going through her head when he’d pointed out Old Mother a moment ago, too - but for a relief, he didn’t say so if that was the case. Instead, he inclined his head - a concession of concord - and leaned back a little.

“Say thankya. As far as where you'll go, you'll stay with me unless I see a better way. We’ve a task or two to set upon in the Calla, meet with some folken and get a lay of the land, and I have a word or two to pass with someone in the hills beyond the Calla. Tonight we’ll dine an-tet and tell you of our journeys, and where we come from, if you’d join.”

“And then I’ll be . . . what . . . part of your posse?” Rane asked him, a little drolly.

Roland shook his head, and the expression on his face betrayed absolutely no humor. His eyes seemed to glimmer in the low light.

“Never think it, sai Roth. You have much further to go. But with us? And with me? Yes, that you’ll be, if you like. And if I do.”

With this he rose to his feet, still stiff, and Rane turned her head, her dark hair wavering about her face, one hand flat on the board of Callahan’s porch, watching him lope inside and wondering after that last.


	8. Eddie's Observation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Susannah is in some kind of way, and Eddie speaks to the gunslinger seeking counsel

_Boy, the honeydripper_

_He's a killer, the honeydripper_

_Salt, sweet, hot, reet_

_A solid old cat_

_Really, a mellow hep cat_

_You dig that lick_

_You dig that beat_

_You get knocked out_

_Right off your feet._

  * **Cab Calloway**



* * *

Despite Roland’s stern directive the night before, Susannah and Eddie Dean didn’t stir until the sun was well on its way to noon high; more, Rane fell asleep again fairly quickly after her conversation with Roland on the porch, slumped on one of the Pere’s ancient wicker rocking chairs on the far end of his common room, curled like a cat with her face buried in her arms in what looked like a rather excruciatingly uncomfortable position. Nevertheless, Roland wasn’t in any hurry to wake any of them. There would be plenty of early mornings and late evenings in the coming weeks, he suspected, and not all would find them such comfortable lodgings as this. Let the husband and wife enjoy the underside of a roof and some repose together while they could. As for Rane, perhaps this would be a lesson in temperance; there would be plenty of opportunities for her to accept graf from their hosts while they remained here, and he’d just as soon she refuse more quickly next time.

“Seems your ka-tet had more fun last night than they let on,” Callahan remarked as he sat down before Roland in the dining room, placing a cup of coffee in front of each of them. “Especially yonder one.”

He lifted a chin at Rane, who was still slumped awkwardly in the rocker, both her boots discarded on the floor before her and her long hair dangling over one arm. Roland sipped his coffee with clear relish, watching her wryly.

“Well, yonder’s not of my ka-tet, Pere.” _Yet_ , he didn’t add. No use bedeviling their fortune with hasty words. “But I believe you’re right, nevertheless. I’ve missed coffee,” he added, eyeing the steaming mug with real affection. “So I did. Precious hard to come by on the trail, at times.”

“One of the many benefits of living in the Calla. Coffee isn’t so very dear. Nor tobacco, which I see you’re partial to as well.”

Roland, who had taken out his purse and was preparing to roll a cigarette on Callahan’s table, glanced up at him, pausing. “Do you mind?”

“Not in the very slightest, Roland.”

Roland took the use of his given name as he thought it was meant to be - a show of familiarity and welcome - but still he put his tobacco away. It hardly did to press their host’s hospitality just yet. “Too early for it, in any case. Will’ee show us this morning what you hide in your church, Pere? Before we off on our errands?”

Callahan seemed to shrink a little at these words. He took a long, bolstering gulp of coffee - Roland was sure it must have burned going down, the way his eyes watered - then, slowly, nodded his head, the early morning light wafting down around his slightly wild white hair.

“If I had my druthers, I’d never step foot within ten wheels of the damned thing ever again,” he admitted, low, “but for you, gunslinger, and for what you and yours do for our little town, sure, we can check in and see what’s what. I’ve a feeling in my guts you’ll be needing it before this mess is done with, though for what purpose I’m sure I don’t know.” He paused, his lips lingering over his mug, then added, in a slightly lower voice, “I wonder if you fret after that girl I found in the rice fields, sai, more than you seem to.”

Roland, lingering over his own mug, his blue eyes acute, betraying nothing except polite interest: “How do you mean?”

“Well.” Callahan sipped, his eyes skating away from Roland’s. “I heard you speak to Eddie last night, that she might liven Black Thirteen would she sleep in the church so near to it -”

“Yet that isn’t how you meant,” said Roland.

Callahan met his gaze, straightening, then set his mug down at last. He sighed, rubbing his forehead, unconsciously avoiding the place where the deep scar was, tale of a hard-lived life long past.

“It was, though. You spoke of her parentage, or seemed to, as if that may have something to do with it.”

“She’s of the Eldar. A long-blooded race far older than you or I, and undying.”

“I’ve never read of such a people.”

“In your Man Jesus’s book, you mean.” Roland’s voice was a trifle dry. “Seems there was much that one’s keen eye must have missed, before he sat down with pen and pad.”

Callahan didn’t bother correcting Roland on the author of the Bible, not this morning. The man’s voice was light and casual enough, but he could sense a cool edge to it just beneath, and he might have faced vampires and low men and all manner of wicked creatures during his lifetime, but he wasn’t in any hurry to rub up rough on a gunslinger out of Gilead, especially one such as this.

“No - well - “ Callahan sighed roughly, shaking his head, then leaned forward. “My words are clumsy. May I begin again? Please you?”

Roland eyed him a moment over his coffee, then shrugged.

“You spoke that she might make Black Thirteen lively,” said Callahan, his face a little red now. “And you danced with her. Danced _close_ , do ya.” He paused, then added the word he’d really meant: “ _Intimate_.”

“I danced with plenty of the ladies of the Calla, Pere, not just her, and many of them near enough to know the size of me as well as any jilly I’d taken to bed.”

“Yes, but . . .” Callahan met Roland’s eyes, seeing the grim set of the gunslinger’s face, and sighed, recognizing that he was going to be filibustered even if it was only to make a point. He shook his head, abandoning this two-step. “Do’ee think she’d wake it, were she to join us inside Our Lady Serenity? Truly? I’d know before I let her set foot in that church again, is all, and you seem to see her fullest so far, out of anybody.”

"You spoke not so yesterday when she sat in your pews, Pere, awaiting our counsel."

"I didn't know what she was yesterday. I didn't know the risk. Now that I do, I'm worried, so I am, and not ashamed to say so. Hell, I'm _frightened_ , if we're being honest." Callahan looked at Roland frankly. "What say you, gunslinger? Can she tread in my church safely or not? Will she wake it?"

Roland sipped his coffee pensively. “Mayhap she would,” he said at length, low. “But though I’ve known her only a day, I’d happily take my chances with her present than with her someplace else. She’s got some ability I’ve yet to witness, I think. I’d like her to come. Though it’s your decision,” he added, inclining his head. “Not mine, nor anyone else’s. If you’d like me to stand her up a wheel away facing the other direction with cotton stuffed into her ears instead, I’ll happily ask it of her.”

“And if she wakes it?” Callahan asked Roland, ignoring this. “With all of us caught inside?”

Roland sipped his coffee, watching him. “Ka,” he said simply. “It dropped her into our laps for a reason, Pere. If that’s it, then we’ll go where it takes us, like milk thistle fluff on a breeze. You understand?”

"Yar, but I don't much care for what I hear."

"Well, ka doesn't cater to such things. It -"

“Roland.”

They both turned to this new voice. Eddie Dean was standing there, tousle-headed and still in the ancient nightshirt the Pere had afforded him the night before. It hung nearly to his mid-thighs, giving him an oddly puerile look, like a kid freshly woken from a late Saturday morning. Which was, in some ways, what he was.

“Hile, Eddie,” said Roland, eyeing him. He paused, then added, “is everything alright?”

Eddie nodded, then hesitated and shook his head. He glanced at Rane, who was still sleeping soundly on the rocker, her long legs now stretched out before her, and jerked his head at Roland. “I’d pass a word or two, if you’ve got a moment.”

“Is it important?”

“I don’t know. I think so. Maybe.”

Roland glanced at Callahan, getting to his feet at once and abandoning his mug of coffee with a touch of regret. “Cry pardon, Pere.”

“Not at all.”

“We’d speak privately, somewhere,” Eddie said pointedly.

Callahan tapped the side of his nose, smiling a little. “Rosie’s gone into town, the back’s vacant and we men of the cloth have a bit of a talent for turning a deaf ear.”

  
  


IT was shaping up to be a beautiful day outside - blue skies, green fields, birds twittering, the whole thing - but it was also going to be hot as the hinges of hell, Roland thought. The air here was remarkably dry and arid for a stretch of farmland dedicated to growing rice, which spent most of its gestation sunk in muddy water, and the temperatures seemed proportionally stark. Even as the first sparkle of sweat began to glisten at his hairline beneath the morning sun, he could recall the bitter chill of that morning as he’d sat on Pere’s porch before sunup. They’d need clothes from the general store today, something for each of them that was a little more accommodating to such weather. He reminded himself silently to send his companions off on this errand with some pocket change later on.

The dooryard to the church was quite expansive for such a small building, stretching away until a distant treeline ascended some half-acre on. Rosalita’s villa - small but comfortable-looking - sat off to one side, accompanied by a little wooden outhouse and a small garden of what Eddie thought looked a hell of a lot like tarragon (it was madrigal, in truth, something Rosie kept near at hand for its medicinal uses). Further on, evident only by its faint babble, was the river that the Calla-folken called the Devar Whye, its ripping current diminished to a lively creek so far south. Eddie strode past Rosie’s house, past her outhouse, and kept walking, his shoulders a little hunched, until they were some quarter-ways to the wood. Roland glanced back at the diminishing church, bewildered and a trifle impatient.

“We’re well out of earshot,” he remarked pointedly. “Any further and we’ll be on our way back to Lud.”

“Out of earshot, huh? Not the way I heard you tell it yesterday.” But Eddie stopped nonetheless, turning to Roland at last and shoving his hands into his pockets. “May I speak to you as dinh?”

Roland gave him a bewildered look. “Do you say so?”

“I do, yep. I gotta get this out before it tears me to bits inside.”

Roland nodded, twirling his finger. “Speak, then.”

“Something’s wrong with Suze,” Eddie said in a bit of a rush, as if he’d been holding this back for some time and had been bursting to release it. He hesitated, and then added, “Roland, I think she might be . . . well, knocked up.”

"Knocked -?"

"Pregnant. Means pregnant."

Roland was silent. Eddie gave him a full five seconds, then sighed roughly, shifting his weight.

“Well, _say_ something!”

“That she may be with child fashes thee?”

“Fuck _yes_ , it fashes me! It fashes me a hell of a lot!” Eddie’s eyes were flashing. “She’s still having her period, Roland, for one thing - hell, I’ve seen her burying her rags on the side of the road not a week gone - and she doesn’t _look_ pregnant, even, except for her boobs are bigger, I think - I just, I dunno how the hell it coulda happened -”

“Have the two of you not . . .?” Roland left this primly unspoken. Eddie laughed.

“Had sex? Gone heels to Jesus? Done the horizontal mambo? That what you’re asking me?”

Roland nodded, though he let his irritation show in the gaze he trained on his companion. Eddie’s loudmouthed humor tended to make appearances during the most unwarranted times.

“Yeah, we get after it a pretty healthy amount, Roland, if you’ve gotta know, but I’m careful, I’m _always_ careful. I always . . . well, y’know . . . “

He made a fist around his right forefinger and then pulled it swiftly away, eyebrows pointedly high. Had the young man’s anxiety not been so clearly high, Roland could have laughed.

“So I dunno how in the hell this _could_ be, but still . . . I feel like it is.”

Roland chewed his lip a moment, eyeing him, weighing his words before he spoke.

“She _is_ pregnant, Eddie, you say true, but I don’t believe it’s with your get. I believe she was given seed by the demon that guarded Jake’s passage.”

A moment of silence passed between them. Eddie shifted his weight, absorbing this. In truth, he didn't seem so terribly surprised - dismayed, sure, but not exactly shocked - and Roland had a moment to reflect on his acuity. Jokes or no, the man was sharp as hell.

“You knew.” Eddie’s voice was low, and Roland listened for accusation in it but found none. Just perplexity and a little touch of horror. “How long?”

“I suspected since we drew Jake. I knew for sure since . . .” Roland trailed off, suddenly hesitant. “Eddie, this is something we should discuss an-tet, not just between ourselves.”

“I figured you’d say that, but I don’t -”

“Tonight,” Roland said steadily. “We’ll speak on it tonight, at great length if need be. With Susannah, as well,” he added. “For if I know and you suspect, I’m certain she’s been sure of it for some time. She’s not stupid, Eddie.”

Eddie opened his mouth to protest further, but seeing the look on his dinh’s face, he fell back, recognizing defeat. The man was going to stonewall him on this one. And after everything, maybe he had a point. Discussing Suze with Roland while she was half a mile away, likely getting breakfast started and bidding good morning to everyone with her usual morning jocundity, felt more than a little conspiratorial.

“You have more to say.” Roland didn’t turn this into a question. There was no need.

“Yeah, I do. Not something I care so much about as my wife, mind you, but . . . well, this really comes from her more than me. She might try to bring it up to you at some point, but I figure since we’re here away from prying eyes, I may the fuck as well.”

Roland made that impatient little twirling gesture with his finger again - _hurry up, then, if you would_.

“That girl the Pere found. I wanna talk about her for a sec.”

“Rane is her name,” said Roland. “If she’s to be of our tet, you ought to learn it.”

“I know what her goddamn name is, Roland.” As always, when Eddie’s blood was up, his accent started to thicken. “That’s just the thing, man . . . you’re ready to just open up to her like this, with everything still so fraught? That ain’t like you at all. I mean, you don’t think it’s a little bit fuckin’ _weird_ that she just turned up like that outta nowhere? How the hell do we know she isn’t a spy from Thunderclap or, shit I dunno, an agent of the Crimson King or some fuckin’ thing? She could be a demon same as the one you found at the Speaking Ring, for all we know -!”

“She is no demon. She’s of the Eldar, and those folken are a far cry from it, Eddie. If you knew what I do of them, you’d perish the very thought.”

“Yeah, well you say Eldar, I say black, white, Puerto Rican or Chinese, I don’t trust her any further than I can throw her either way. You wanna know what Vaughn Eisenhart said about her last night?”

Roland gave Eddie a rather droll smirk. “I expect he spoke of her beauty, like most of the other men. Seemed to be the rage.”

Eddie ignored this. “He said, ‘that girl’s got the look of a sheep-killing dog.’ You understand what that means?”

“Yes, I understand what it means very well, and like much of the talk amongst these people I should think you’d be trig enough to take it with a grain of salt, as you like to say. This is ka’s will, that’s all.” He eyed the younger man. “You have to let it work, Eddie. If you doubt her that way, it’s as if you hold it in your hand like a caught bird.”

“So what I’m hearing is that she _might_ be crooked, but you’re willing to let her stick around because even if she is, it’s all part of the big grand master plan?”

The honest answer was _yes_ \- Roland had himself ruminated on the very things Eddie was speaking of, and more than a time or two - but somehow he was loath to say so. Aloud, he replied, “There’ll be water if god wills it.”

“I don’t think god has a whole lot to do with this, Roland. I saw that girl hook two of your bullets, just batted them away like she was Hank Aaron and they were a couple of ping-pong balls. How do you know we can stand against her if she -?”

“We won’t _need_ to stand against her. She’ll stand with _us_. You have to trust me on this, Eddie,” Roland added as Eddie opened his mouth, looking skeptical. “Jake has the touch, and I have my feelings, and I feel that she is meant to be here, to aid us. I haven’t any doubt.”

This last part was not quite a lie, but it was a near thing. He _wasn’t_ sure about her, any more than Eddie or any of the rest of them were, and that they expected him to be able to see so far ahead worried him a little. But the bit about his feelings towards her . . . that was the undiluted truth. He thought that he would trust the girl with his life if it came to it, even so soon, and even though his head balked at the idea.

“I got something else to say, then, and you’re gonna like it even less,” Eddie was saying. He’d clearly recognized summary defeat on the subject of kicking this newcomer to the curb out of hand - he had been riding with Roland for quite some time now, and he knew well enough how mulish the man could be when the fancy took him. “This I don’t say to you as dinh, Roland, just man to man. You hear me?”

“Hear you very well.”

“That girl likes you. Matter of fact, I think she sort of fell a little bit in love with you the first time she clapped eyes on you when we were camped out on the road and Pere brought her to us. Suze saw it right off the bat, and we both saw what happened last night at that shindig with the Calla people.”

This was the truth. Susannah and Eddie had been taking their repose on a bench near the big, grassy space that had been designated as the dancefloor, both of them clutching cups of graf, Eddie’s arm slung around his wife’s shoulder. Though Roland had danced with several ladies, all of them clearly aflutter about it, he’d spent the longest - two whole songs - with this new girl, Rane Roth. No smarmy, genteel six-inches-apart two-step nonsense going on with them, either; Roland was holding her close to him, really clutching her, with his hands around her trim waist and her own slung around his neck, her cheek resting against his shoulder. They didn’t seem to realize they were the only ones behaving so, either.

_Lost in regard_ , Susannah said abruptly.

Eddie had glanced at her. _Say what, now?_

Suze nodded to Roland and Rane, smirking a little over her cup. _Lost in regard, I said. That’s what Daddy Mose used to call it when two people swung that way on the floor. Lost in regard for one another._

_I dunno what you’re on about, sweetness, they’re just schmoozing._

But Susannah was shaking her head. _No they ain’t, sugar. Look at that man’s face and tell me that’s schmooze. Go on._

Eddie had, and was bemused at what he saw there. Roland had rested his cheek on the top of Rane’s head - he outstripped her by a good five or six inches - and had actually let his pale blue eyes fall shut, as if in repose. Had he ever seen his dinh look so relaxed in strange company? If so, he didn’t remember.

_So what? Shit, any guy enjoys a pretty lady’s company if it shows up on his doorstep, Suze, that’s just the way of the cock. Pardon my French._

_Nah. I tell you what, Mister Dean, I think there’s a little somethin’-somethin’ happening right here. That girl was making eyes at him right from the get-go. I believe she’s got a little bit of a crush on him, and maybe our esteemed sai Deschain of Gilead might be a little mushy too._

_It doesn’t happen like that in real life, Suze, you oughta know that,_ said Eddie, a trifle scathingly, although even as he spoke he’d remembered the first time he had exchanged words with Odetta Holmes, Susannah’s first iteration. How, even as she spoke to him, he had realized in the space of perhaps five or six minutes that he had fallen in love with her, neat as you please, like a key slipping into a lock. 

Presently, aloud, Roland Deschain said, “Horseshit.”

“No, it ain't, Roland, and I think you damn well -”

“Even if that's so,” said Roland, now a trifle impatiently, “I see not one single reason to acknowledge such a thing, Eddie Dean, especially on the cusp of this thing, and I say thankya very much.”

“Well, I only wanna talk to about it because Suze is a crackshot with this sort of thing, Roland, and there’s liable to be trouble if -”

“Enough,” said Roland tersely, and his voice was sharp enough to shut Eddie up. “I’ll not entertain this giddy prattle, not this morning. We’ve a long, hard day ahead of us and this kind of talk serves us not at all, you ken. It ought to be shelved by the both of you. It’s none of my nor your nevermind how any woman feels for me, or for anybody else, for that matter, and unless we are far more stupid than I took us for, we shan’t let such a silly thing get in the way of our business, even if it’s true. Does thee hear me, Eddie, and well? For I’d not speak on this again.”

  
Eddie eyed Roland a moment, the sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Sure, Roland, I hear you loud and clear. Let's go get some breakfast, I guess. Not a word of this to Suze," he added, glancing at his dinh. "Not 'til tonight, anyways."

"Not a word," Roland agreed, striding past him, his brow dark. "Nor to Rane, do ya. I'll not have her carried away on this pretense, either."


	9. Breakfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some uncomfortable subjects arise before the gunslingers take Rane and explore the Calla.

_Creatures of habit, carrion flowers_

_Growing from repeated crimes_

_The afterglow in full bloom_

_Slow and relentless, we're after you_

_Hold on to the pain_

_Of love taken from you_

_A plague_

_Hold on to the pain_

_Of love taken from you_

_A plague._

  * **Chelsea Wolfe**



* * *

Back at the rectory, Rane and Susannah had both risen at last, and though they’d had their fair share of booze the evening before - Rane most especially - they were both helping Callahan’s housekeeper, Rosalita, make breakfast with reasonably high spirits when Roland and Eddie came loping back up the lawn.

Rosie was perhaps forty, good-looking and rather sharp, with dark, gray-streaked hair pulled back into a knot at the nape of her neck and a positively contagious grin. She’d ventured off to town in the early morning and had brought back with her fresh eggs, thick sausages, and some sort of spongy flatbread she called _montecado_. It was this the three women presently prepared in the Pere’s fragrant kitchen, Rane with more than a touch of boorishness (she could count on one hand the times she’d cooked in all her life, and it showed).

“Nay, lady, nay, thee’s got to turn ‘em, like so!” Rosie told her for perhaps the third time, taking Rane’s wooden spatula and demonstrating how to flip the eggs in the cast-iron she was trying to cook them in. “Turn, and turn, and turn, y’see? Elseways you’ll burn the whole lot. Never let ‘em rest too terrible long, lest they get comfy, ya ken?”

“I ken,” said Rane, her face a trifle pink. “Sorry . . . I’m not very good at this sort of thing . . .”

“Aye, goes to show, Pere, does it not?” Rosie said merrily, glancing back at Callahan, who was sitting at the dining table chopping shallots and smirking to himself. “Here comes a pretty young thing who can twirl a sword like Fafhrd of Nehwon, kennit, but can she scrape an egg off a skillet to save her very own neck? Never in life!”

Susannah and Callahan both burst out laughing at this. Rane, who understood this was not meant as a cruel jest, joined them willingly enough, still flushed.

“Have you seen my man, Pere?” Susannah asked Callahan after the laughter had died away. “I’ve not spotted him since he took off outta bed this morning. Seemed all of a dither.”

“Yonder,” said the Pere, gesturing vaguely out toward the churchyard. “He’s gone to palaver with his dinh, though over what I’m sure I can’t fathom.”

“Oh, I believe I can,” said Susannah shrewdly, watching Rane, who was currently attempting (poorly) to scrape her semi-cooked eggs onto a serving platter. “Rane, honeybunch, why don’t you come out front with me and take five? You wanna turn that over to Rosie, if she isn’t fussed?”

“Let me see there, lady.” Rosie took the pan and the spatula gently from Rane’s hands, giving her a kind smile. “G’on, sai Roth, speak with thy ka-mate, this’ll be waiting for ya when you’re through.”

Susannah was already on her way out the door, moving across the Pere’s hardwood floor with the same quick, deft motions Rane had seen her utilize the night before. She followed with a slightly heavy heart, as one who knows she is about to be scolded.

Once outside, Susannah climbed into one of the Pere’s rockers and sat there, brushing off her palms of floor-filth. Rane took a seat at her side, pushing her long hair behind her ears and curling her legs beneath her Indian-style as she always did, her holstered sword hanging off her belt and stuck off to one side awkwardly. The growing noon hour was lovely around them, brightly lit, humming with insects and clear as crystal. It was fixing to be a scorcher, that was for sure, and Susannah didn’t think ahead to the hours they would spend on sweaty horseback touring the Calla with much affection.

“Look, if it’s what I said about Jake and his gun last night, I’m sorry,” Rane blurted before she could stop herself. “I’ve just never met a kid who -”

“Jake? _Jake_?” Susannah had to think back before she remembered what the girl was even talking about. “No, forget about that, that’s nothing to do with it. This is something else. You’re not about to get shouted down, sugar,” she added, seeing Rane’s slightly uneasy expression and feeling a touch of guilt. Did she exude that sort of presence, now that she was a gunslinger, armed to the teeth and far flung from Oxford, Mississippi, shor’leg or no? She had an idea that she did. “You ain’t in trouble. I just thought I might should spend a few minutes talking about something with you so we’re all on the same level, is all. Okay?”

Rane nodded, shifting in her chair and facing Susannah. As she did, Suze examined her for the first real time since they’d met, at least in honest, bright daylight. The woman was beautiful in a way that seemed almost unworldly; full-lipped, thick-browed and dark-headed, she looked to Susannah almost Mediterranean, perhaps Iraqi or Greek, but even that wasn’t quite it. She wasn’t quite like anyone Susannah had ever seen. No goddamn wonder all these menfolk were just about tripping over their feet around her.

“Where’d you say it was you come from?” she asked abruptly. She hadn’t meant to ask this question, but some intuition - suspicion, tempered by curiosity, she reckoned - seemed to insist on it.

“You’re asking about my parentage, not where I was born,” said Rane, not bothering to make it into a question. Not bothering to wait for an answer, either. “On my dad’s side, I’m Sindarin. I’m not sure how to prove it to you guys besides my tongue and my sword, though. I don’t exactly carry a pedigree around with me these days.”

“Well, no need for all that. Roland seems to believe you, and he’s got more brains than all the rest of us put together. Well,” Susannah amended, smirking a little, “actually I take that back. Maybe more _jive_ , if you know what I mean, but sometimes in the common sense department I think that man might be missing a stitch or two.”

“You’re saying the dude could talk the hinges off a gate, in other words.”

“Honey, when that man’s in a mood, he could likely talk the gate off the fence, too.”

Rane snorted, turning her startlingly lovely countenance towards the Calla beyond, and Susannah was rather glad for it. There was something a little unnerving about the weight of her gaze, like the feeling you got behind your eyes when a predator in the bushes was sizing you up, moments before pouncing. A lioness, maybe.

“Yeah, that sounds like a fair assessment from what I’ve seen so far, too.”

“So, honey, lemme ask you this, and I hope you don’t think it’s too forward of me.” Susannah hesitated, plucking at her trousers, trying to pick her way through this treacherous terrain. “You said to us the other day that you hunted down a man who killed somebody you cared for. Who -?”

“I was talking about Arthur. He was my . . .” Rane struggled with the appropriate jargon. _Boyfriend_ was far too blithe a term, but he’d not lived long enough to become her bridegroom, either. “He was my man, I guess you’d say. I dunno how else to put it. I thought you’d probably figured out as much, when I saw your face,” she added, glancing at Susannah. “Not so much your husband or the other two.”

“Yeah, well, us girls, we tend to know our own when we spot ‘em, don’t we?” said Susannah, and reaching out touched Rane’s hand gently. It was in that moment, for the first time, that the two of them truly began to become ka-mates of a sort, although Roland hadn’t yet accepted Rane into their fold just yet. “Why didn’t you want to tell any of us outright? Can I ask you that without you thinking I’m being too nosy?”

“I dunno, Susannah. It’s tough to talk about, I guess, especially with strangers. You know, he went in a hard way. And it took a long time for me to . . .” Rane cleared her throat, suddenly brisk. “Was that what you wanted to know? About Arthur? I’ll tell you what you want to know about him, if that’s it.”

“No, sugar, no, you don’t have to relive all that mess on my behalf,” said Susannah, shaking her head slowly. “I actually came out here to talk to you about Roland, if you’re okay to indulge me for a few more minutes.”

She saw the wary way Rane tensed at her dinh’s name, saw that she was absolutely _not_ okay with a few more minutes if it had to do with _that_ good gentleman, and it told Susannah all she needed to know, all she’d suspected to be true. She leaned forward, snatching one of Rane’s hands off the arm of her chair. Her grasp was dry and cool and strong.

“Now, hang on, Rane, let me say this,” she said firmly.

“Susannah, there’s no need to -” Already Rane was trying to pull away, but Susannah held her fast.

“I know he’s something to behold, that man, I do, he’s got what we like to call a glammer about him,” she said, speaking low and quick, knowing that if the bluster and fanfare she’d seen of the woman sitting before her was as bone-deep as she suspected, she’d be on her feet and fleeing this conversation in a hurry after she heard these next few words. “And I can tell he thinks a little bit more of you than just another warm body with a weapon, especially after last night -”

“That’s not true.”

“It _is_ , though, and you listen to me, sai Roth, you listen real, _real_ well, so that I might spare you some more hurt down the line. Because you _will_ get hurt, probably badly, if you keep after this. Make no mistake about _that_ , sugar.” Susannah’s grip was powerful, and she held fast as Rane tried to pull away, as she’d known she would. “You put that away and leave him well enough alone, girl. He’s not what you might be thinking he is. We love him in our own way - _all_ of us do, damned though it likely makes us - but lots of people have loved him before, and almost every single one of them is so much dust and bones behind him now. Including the women he was said to care for.”

Rane jerked her hand away from Susannah at last, her brow knitted, looking not just dismayed now but a trifle angry. It did wonders for her already-intimidating countenance, making her seem to swell, the way an agitated raptor seemed to swell when its feathers were ruffled. Susannah had no doubt, in that moment, that this woman was indeed a gunslinger, as Roland had surmised, and that like any one of them, she was capable of killing with impunity and sleeping just as soundly for it.

“I don’t know what you think is going on here,” she said softly, “but I just danced with the guy, Susannah, that’s it, and that doesn’t mean anything more than a handshake and a how-do where I’m from, which is exactly what it meant last night.” She got to her feet, tall and lean and uneasy, her eyes bright beneath her dark brows, meeting Susannah’s. “Thank you for the advice, Susannah, but I’d just as soon not talk about this again. It’s a non-issue. _Beyond_ a non-issue, matter of fact. You hear what I’m saying?”

Susannah fell back a little, disappointed. _Can’t say I didn’t try, if it goes sideways with them later on_ , she thought dismally. Aloud, she said, “Okay, Rane. Cry your pardon, honeybunch. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just thought you oughta know the size of things, since you’re new here.”

“I think I’ll size things up myself, given the fullness of time here, thanks very much,” Rane replied, a little shortly, and turning strode back indoors, her dark hair whirling around her.

_Oh, honey_ , Susannah thought frowningly, getting down off the rocker and following suit, _I believe you surely will, at that. I just hope it isn’t to your misfortune._

  
  


EDDIE and Roland had gained the house by now, and though Susannah was a little disconcerted by their sudden advent, she needn’t have worried; their timing could not have been more impeccable, with the pair of them striding into Callahan’s back door about fifteen seconds before Rane strode into the front. There was no overlap, though when she spoke with Eddie later that night in bed about their unintentionally mirrored conversations, Susannah would feel a combination of amusement and disquiet. As ka-tet, the four of them were exquisitely attuned to one another, a fact she knew good and well after so long on the road with Roland, but to see it put into practice was still a little eerie.

“Where have you been, white boy?” she asked Eddie, eyes dancing. He lifted her up and kissed her lustily.

“Nowhere worth discussing, ma’am. What’s all this, then? I thought for a second I’d walked into a Waffle House or something.”

“Rane here scrambled us up some eggs fine well, and that there’s sausage fresh off sai Eisenhart’s ranch,” Rosie said, ignoring Rane’s reddening face. “Dig in, you boys, let it not get cold, do ya, or I’ll have somebody’s hide, so I will.”

ROSALITA was gone once breakfast was served, though Rane didn’t know where to; she heard the clopping of hooves and the creak of a wagon wheel out front, and suspected she was off to do some more errands for the Pere, perhaps. She hardly noticed, however; the spread was almost freakishly delicious, fresh and juicy and somehow whole, and she understood that it was because of the clearness and purity of the air here. Still, even as she chewed her sausage, chasing it with little sips of coffee, Callahan’s words recurred to her: _I’ve wondered often if there isn’t some sort of mutagen floating around in the air._ A town full of twins seemed to speak of such a thing, certainly, didn’t it?

There was silence amongst them at first, for perhaps half of their meal, which, though Rane and Callahan didn’t know it, was uncharacteristic indeed. Part of it was the fact that there had been a bit of a divergence between them this morning - Roland and Eddie, going off to discuss Rane and Susannah, and then Susannah and Rane, going off to discuss Roland - but there was something else, too. Rane, always acute, had begun to feel something dark and a little grim at the very back of her mind, a sort of whisper, like a barely distinguished voice from another floor of an apartment building, and it was coming from the church. Whatever it was that had kept Callahan from letting her kip out in the pews of Our Lady Serenity, she thought she might be picking up on it a little now. And it felt . . . _ugh_ . It felt _fucked_ , quite frankly. Like the slimy, crawling underside of the very universe. She hoped to God it stayed there - at the back of her mind - because if it came to all the way, she sensed it could send her right down into madness with the merest effort. She was astounded that she hadn’t felt it yesterday, whatever it was. More, she hoped Roland wouldn’t ask them to enter that church again. Her luck didn’t quite stick, however.

“Pere,” said Roland, glancing at Callahan. “After we’ve dined, I’d have you show it to us, if you would.”

There was no question about what he meant from any of his company. Rane got abruptly to her feet, her chair screeching beneath her.

“Point me towards the loo, would you?” she said, looking at Callahan.

He did. “Rosie’s box is some quarter-acre, across from her house, sai Roth. Follow the yellow flowers.”

Rane left them without another word, striding quick and lean out the door, the screen banging shut behind her. Roland watched her go, looking almost comically bewildered.

“Have I spoken too quickly?” he said, glancing at Susannah and Eddie for direction, his mouth turned down a little.

“Nah. She’s just not an idiot, is all.” Susannah considered her sausage, then dropped it back onto her plate. Delectable spread or not, the mention of Black Thirteen had robbed her smartly of her appetite. “I bet you a hundred bucks she knows just what you’re talking about, even if we haven’t said boo to her.”

“You still sure you want her in there with us?” said Eddie grimly.

Roland, who had answered this question several times over that morning, said nothing, merely sipped his coffee and stared out the back door after Rane. Her pert form could be seen, long dark hair rippling, making her way with undue haste towards Rosalita’s outhouse.

“I know she’s got an ass you could bounce a quarter off of, but maybe you better put your eyeballs back into your head nonetheless, Roland,” said Susannah before she quite realized what was about to come out of her mouth; it took a physical effort not to slap both hands over her mouth in horror at herself. Roland turned to her, his expression cool and stern and a little shocked.

“I beg your pardon, gunslinger?”

Susannah flushed to the roots of her hair. She turned her eyes down to the dropped sausage on her plate.

“Cry pardon, Roland, that wasn’t very nice a thing to say. I don’t know what came over me.”

“Nor do I,” Roland growled, eyeing her disapprovingly.

“Yet she has a fair point nevertheless,” said Callahan. Quite daringly, Eddie thought, looking at the man with surprise. He reminded himself not to put himself on the Pere’s bad side.

Roland glanced around at his three companions, leaning back in his chair with a creak and dropping his balled-up napkin onto his unfinished plate with a rather derisive flourish. His blue eyes were acute and perceptive and quite displeased.

“Mayhap we should bring this into the light, then,” he said, his voice betraying just the merest hint of sardonicism. “Since it seems that everyone is so concerned with my personal business. Shall we, then?”

“Why the hell not?” said Eddie, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “Go on, Roland, let’s hear it.”

“You spoke to her of this already today, did you not, Susannah?” said Roland irritably, looking at her.

Susannah started rather badly. She hadn’t been prepared for this; she had been so certain that the boys had come inside after the thick of her conversation with Rane had ended.

“Well -” she struggled, glancing at Eddie for help. He offered none, though; he had the back of one hand over his eyes and was grinning ear to ear, as if thoroughly enjoying himself. “Well, yeah Roland, we did, if you must know. Not that it’s any business of yours what two women discuss amongst themselves in their own damn time -”

“Save if it’s to do with me. Was it?”

Susannah met Roland’s gaze. “Yes, it was.”

“And?”

“Well, Roland . . .” Susannah hesitated. “You want it plain?”

“Surely I do, no other way.”

“Well, she loves you, then, I think. At least a little bit.”

Roland rose quickly, brushing his jeans. “No, she doesn’t.”

“Roland, she does, so.”

“No.” Roland brushed this off, striding away. “Get thee ready to ride. Both of you. And enough of this glib palaver for now, I haven’t the stomach for it.”


	10. The Trail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gunslingers split up

_I was dreaming of the past_

_And my heart was beating fast_

_I began to lose control_

_I began to lose control_

_I didn't mean to hurt you_

_I'm sorry that I made you cry_

_Oh my, I didn't want to hurt you_

_I'm just a jealous guy._

  * **Elton John**



  
  


* * *

Jake joined them once breakfast was through, and seemed a little disappointed that he had missed it, even though there was still plenty for him to partake in (Oy, too, who seemed quite keen on the sausage in particular and snatched the morsels Rane tossed down to him with clear relish).

“Sai Eisenhart brought us horses,” Jake told them, taking a seat at the now-vacated dining table as Susannah and Rane washed up the few dishes side by side at the sink. “There are five of them all told. He says we can keep them until our time here is up, if we want.”

“Horses?” Rane glanced at him over one shoulder, interested, her eyes bright beneath her dark brows. “ _Real_ horses? Or ponies?”

Jake considered this. “Ponies, I think,” he admitted. “They’re little and sort of hairy. I got this, too,” he added, lifting a rolled-up sheet of parchment in one hand.

“What is it, Jake?” asked Roland. He was sitting on a chair on the far side of the dining room rolling a cigarette on one thin knee, legs crossed, and was eyeing the paper with renewed fervor.

“A map, I think.” Jake rose and extended it to Roland, who took it and unfurled it, eyeballing it with clear interest. “Benny says the Tavery twins made it for us, to help us get a lay of the land.”

“So they did.” Roland rolled the map up and stuffed it into his purse, looking pleased. “You’ve done well, Jake, this'll serve us well.”

“Say thankya,” said Jake, flushing with pleasure.

“I swear to the Lord above and all the saints, if I never see another saddle it’ll be too soon,” said Susannah with clear honesty, drying her hands and tossing the towel onto the Pere’s countertop. “Gimme a boost, honeybunch.”

Rane lifted her, a little uncertainly - she was taking liberties with the lady that even her husband would likely not have sneezed at - but Susannah seemed not to mind, indeed appeared to be used to it, and when Rane set her onto the ground she hurried off without a backwards glance.

“Are’ee ready to ride, the lot of you?” Roland asked them, getting to his feet. "I'd not let grass grow beneath us this morning, it's already late."

Eddie mumbled something irritably. He was sipping at a cool mug of coffee and eyeing Susannah, his expression worried. Oy, from Jake’s heel, cried, “‘Ide-ide!”

“Hush, Oy,” said Jake sternly. Rane heard Oy’s soft reply, his ears laid back - _Oy ky’it_ \- and laughed helplessly.

“Well then let us move along,” said Roland, making for the door. Rane marked the loping way he strode, his boot heels knocking against the wooden floor and his gunbelt slung low on his lean hips, unable not to. _Put a quarter in your ass, girl,_ she thought grimly, starting after him, _because you’re playing yourself real, real good. Susannah has you pegged_.

Jake was right; they were ponies, not horses, shaggy little creatures with long ears and bright, intelligent eyes. Rane didn’t mind; horseback was where she’d spent much of her time in Ambarino, and she was glad enough to get into a saddle again regardless, even though her boots hung not a foot from the packed dirt even in the stirrups. The tack was crude, the bridle almost absurdly callow and clearly homespun, but it was plenty good enough for her. To have a beast between her legs again felt a little bit like coming home after a long spell being away, and she welcomed it.

“They’re just little wee guys, aren’t they?” she remarked, stroking the pony’s wiry mane fondly.

“Can thee ride?” Roland asked Rane, glancing at her from his saddle. "Or do you need to hop on back with someone?"

“Does a bear shit in the woods?”

Eddie seemed to be the only one who understood this, judging by his peal of honest laughter. Roland, Susannah and Jake all looked bewildered.

“Yeah, I can ride,” said Rane, smirking and pulling the pony around. “Raised on a saddle, pretty much.”

“You look fair well this morning,” Roland remarked, eyeing her as they turned their steeds toward the road and began away from the Pere’s church. “Did’ee sleep well?”

Rane was very aware she was receiving a compliment, and was equally aware of the weight of Susannah’s and Eddie’s eyes upon her. Roland met her gaze quite unabashedly, and she had a moment to consider that she could probably have pulled this horse over and walked over and kissed the man full on the mouth. He didn’t seem in a mood to protest. She didn’t pretend the idea didn’t grab her a little.

She cleared her throat. “I did, yeah, eventually.”

“That’s the secret to thy beauty, then. I’ll be sure to let the Calla men know, for they’ve wondered of it, I'm sure.”

Rane said nothing to this, but she felt her heart thump a little bit harder beneath her shirt nevertheless. Though Roland had said this almost offhandedly, the way someone would pass time with a stranger and speak on the weather, she could tell that all three of their companions had marked this for what it was - a quite uncharacteristic adulation, apropos of nothing, no less - and the smile that touched her lips was quite genuine, seeming to augment her beauty.

“Hey, how’s about we save the flirting for later?” said Eddie, sounding a little impatient. “I’m wound up like a clock as it is. Are we going to the church or not?”

"Yeah, I'd know too," Susannah agreed, low. "It's got me a little bit anxious, if we're being honest."

Roland shook his head, and Rane didn’t think she was the only one who fell back a little with relief. “No. Not yet. I think if we were to visit on that thing now, it’d spoil our appetite for what’s to come.”

“When, then?” asked Jake. “We can’t ignore it forever.”

“No, we can’t.” Roland sighed. “Later tonight, mayhap. We’ll see how we feel.”

“Well, for my own part, I think I could go my whole life without seeing what that thing looks like and feel pretty much okay about it,” Rane remarked.

“Do you know what we’re talking about?” Eddie asked, looking at her with some surprise.

Rane shook her head. “No, but whatever it is, I feel it at the bottom of my mind. Like a weight. Feels nasty,” she added, frowning. "Like a gas station bathroom at three AM. You know what I'm talking about?"

Eddie Dean, who had lit up in just such places more times than he could count in his old life, nodded grimly. "All too well, sweetheart."

“We’ll see how we feel later,” said Roland again. "Though we must meet it, I'd not hurry to do so."

"Nor I," Susannah agreed, low.

“What do you want us to do, then?” Jake asked.

“Well.” Roland was stroking his chin. He’d turned his eyes from Rane, but she felt her gaze returning to his nevertheless, and her heart was beating a little harder. Susannah had pegged her, that much was clear; she definitely had a little bit of a crush on the guy. “Come the town, we’ll speak on it. Until then, peace you.”

They reached a divergence in the road some fifteen minutes later, and Roland heeled his mount, turning to his four companions.

“Jake,” he said, jerking his head. “Come here, do it please ya, and give me your hand.”

Jake did, and Roland produced a little pouch, from which he poured a few golden coins and a couple of red gems into Jake's outstretched palm. Jake took these and stuffed them into his pocket.

“Take that, Jake, and get clothes for you and your ka-mates. A shirt for me, too, and one for Rane. A dress, mayhap, if it isn’t too dear.” He glanced at Rane. “Does thee wear dresses?”

“Not unless I have to,” said Rane dryly. "But sure."

“Thanks, Roland!” said Jake, looking quite happy. 

"We're not gonna ask what size she is or nothin', huh?" Susannah looked grimly amused. "That how you think ladies' clothes work, Roland? One size fits all?"

"If it doesn't fit, I'm not going to beleaguer the issue," said Rane honestly, looking at Susannah and smirking. "I trust your judgment, you've seen me top to bottom."

“You’ll both go with Jake,” Roland was saying, glancing at Eddie and Susannah. “Thee’ll be questioned by the folken, and I hope you’ll answer true.”

“A meet and greet,” said Eddie, and sighed. “What better.”

“Oh, shush.” Susannah slapped at his shoulder. “Like you ain’t ready to talk the ears off a few folks or something.”

“Where will you guys go?” Jake asked.

“Guys! Go!” Oy agreed from Jake’s pony’s heel.

“I'd speak to the Manni,” said Roland. “Rane will help, I hope.”

“Since I don’t have anywhere else to be,” said Rane sardonically.

“Okay.” Eddie nodded, wheeling his horse around. “Then I guess we’ll see you both later.”

  
  


RANE and Roland were riding together toward the far mountains some ten minutes later. It was silent around them save the cry of insects, and as they grew near to the cleft Rane heeled her mount. She was peering toward the rock wall, her eyes narrowed.

"Holy shit. Would you look at that."

She had dismounted in the space of a second and drawn near to the wall, walking slowly, her face turned up in a bemused little smirk. When she reached the rock, she placed a hand on it gently, running the tips of her fingers down it. There was writing there, scrawling and lilted, but she knew the text well enough. It was Tengwar, the text of her people. And how long had it been since she'd seen that writing on anything except for the base of her blade, where her own name was written? Years? It was like coming home, in a strange way.

“What is it?” Roland had dismounted too, and was standing beside his own pony, stroking her neck gently and watching Rane. "Did you find something?"

"It's Elvish." She glanced over one shoulder at Roland, the wind teasing her hair across her face. "Tengwar. I haven't seen it in donkey years, Roland, I don't even know what it's doing here."

Roland drew near her, approaching her at her elbow. He linked his thumbs in his belt, eyeing the writing on the wall, which seemed to have been done with chalk or something similar. He had no doubt it would be washed away in the next rainfall. "What does it say?"

Rane fingered the text from left to right, a little smile playing about her mouth. "It says, _le nallon sí di'nguruthos_."

"My knowledge of that tongue isn't good enough. What does it mean?"

"Means, 'to thee I cry now beneath the shadow of death.'"

Roland nodded, sucking his teeth. "Does it mean something to you?"

Rane smiled fully now, and it made her almost heartbreakingly beautiful. "Elbereth means a lot to any of my dad's people, Roland. That's who this is talking about."

"Rane, you're lovely when you smile, I'll say that much true."

Rane glanced up at him, surprised by this. He was watching her, unsmiling, fingers still looped through his belt. The sun was hot and bright on his forehead.

"You think so?" she asked him quietly. They were very near now.

"I do."

Rane eyed him, her eyes flicking between his own pensively.

"You don't seem the compliment-giving sort, but that's the second one I've gotten from you this morning."

He shrugged. He was very close to her now. Rane could feel the heat of his breath against her skin.

"Can I kiss you?" she asked him suddenly.

Roland looked a little bewildered by this. "Do you wish to?"

"Yeah, I do."

"Then you may. Give you pleasure of it. Though I haven't washed."

This strange pronouncement didn't discourage her in the least. She reached up and took his face in her hands, feeling the roughness of his stubble, and meeting his eyes for a moment pressed her mouth gently against his own. He tasted just like she’d imagined - like that cigarette the night prior - and she felt him fall against her, slackening, his breath coming a little quicker against her lips.

"Again?" she murmured against his mouth. He nodded, and she kissed him once more, her tongue flitting out and finding his, touching it only just. She could feel her heart beating harder as she did, and she hoped his was, as well. How she'd wanted this since she first clapped eyes on the man . . . Susannah had gotten it right during their talk on the Pere's porch. She was all tangled up inside over this guy.

"Roland." His name came off her tongue sounding rough, and as she spoke she drew nearer to him, her hands linking around his neck like they had the night she'd danced with him. "Can we just take five? I want to . . . "

Though what she wanted to do was left unsaid, Roland seemed to intuit it on his own. He pressed her against the rock wall, gentle but strong, his mouth lingering over hers, his breath coming a little faster as he looked down at her, his hand running through her dark hair.

"We'll delay our meeting."

"So it's delayed. Will you stay here with me for a second? I want . . ." Again Rane found herself hesitating to speak it aloud. Roland's lips hovered over her own as he lingered over her.

“Will you lay with me?” he asked her gently. “Is that what you want? What you're trying to say?”

Rane nodded at once. "Yes."

"Here?"

"Where else?"

"Can I touch you?"

This was so baldly stated that for a moment Rane wasn't sure how to react. Had a man ever asked her that, before love? She didn't think so. She nodded, meeting his eyes, and at once his hands were roving down her body, deliciously firm, running up the underside of her shirt and grasping her bare breasts, descending the ripple of her ribs and then - wonderfully - slipping down her jeans and exploring her cleft, two fingers and then three going all the way down and then inside with clear relish. She gasped a little, biting her lip, watching Roland's face as he touched her, his eyes gentle and voracious on hers.

“This might not be a good idea,” he murmured. "We'll vex things, if we do this. You should know. It's not a good idea."

“Yeah, well.” Rane was unbuckling her jeans, meeting his blue eyes with her own. “I’ll talk to Jesus about it when the time comes.”

She was sliding down the rock wall now, keeping her eyes on him, laying herself in the grit and dust and spreading her legs at his advent. Roland followed suit, unzipping his fly, and the length of him sprung out, hard as cut diamond (and had it been any other way since he’d set eyes on her? He doubted it). He grasped himself in one hand, watching her beneath him, hardly able to believe this was happening at all. He could feel his heart beating hard beneath his shirt as his gaze flicked between her bright eyes and her full lips. Christ, she was beautiful, and he wanted her badly, and this was most definitely a mistake. He knew it even as he bent and kissed her, loving the firm press of her mouth on his, loving the way her breath came quick and her heart raced against his palm as he touched her.

“We shouldn’t do this,” he murmured against her mouth. Gods above, his heart was pounding so hard that he could hear its waver in his very voice, and with her palms on his chest, surely she could feel it beating so. “This is a poor decision, Rane.”

“So sue me.”

She grasped him in his fullness, relishing in the way he gasped and slackened, and then, pulling his face near to hers with her spare hand, put him inside her as far as he would go. For a moment neither of them moved, just lay there forehead to forehead, panting with pleasure, their hearts racing. Roland moved first, pressing himself gently further into her.

“Someone will see,” he breathed as she sought his mouth with her own. His heart was beating so hard it was a wonder she couldn’t hear it. “The Manni aren’t far gone from us, Rane -”

Rane ignored this, only thrust against him with her hips, her own breath coming quickly. They lay against the side of the mountain in the dust, and sure, someone might come along, but it felt safe enough. Both her palms were against his chest as she kissed him.

“Roland, no one is coming." She sighed roughly. "God, I can feel your heart beating. I don't know why but I love it.”

“Can thee?” Roland gasped.

“Hard.”

“It’s your fault.” Roland pressed his mouth against hers, his heart still hammering against Rane’s palms. “This will be done fast if you don't -”

His words devolved into a long, low moan of pleasure as Rane pressed against him, pulling his lean torso close to hers and kissing him.

“Roland -”

“Soon -”

“Too soon -”

It was quick for them both. Roland pulled Rane to him, holding her close, his head flung back in ecstasy. For a moment they remained that way, breathing harshly, then Roland bent and kissed her, an uncharacteristic gesture, meeting her mouth with his own, sensuous and romantic. In that moment, Rane would have happily given him the skin off her back. Her heart thumped hard as his lips met hers. It had been brief, their coming together, but she couldn't remember ever feeling such a powerful surge of desire for a man, nor one so quickly satisfied.

“I cry your pardon,” Roland muttered against her mouth, his eyes on hers.

Rane shook her head. “Don’t dare.” She took one of his hands - the one missing the first and second fingers - and kissed it gently “Don’t.”

Roland took her hand and placed it in the center of his chest, putting both his own over hers. Rane could feel the thump of his heart, still quick from love, just beneath it.

“Feel thee what you do to me, lady, to my very heart,” he said gently, meeting her gaze. “Can you?"

Rane nodded, meeting his eyes.

“Do ya. I’d not say a word to anyone, not even my ka-tet.” Roland sighed abruptly “I believe this feels like trouble, so I say, though I hope I’m wrong.”

Rane sighed, looking up at him “I don’t think you are.”

  
  



	11. Conversations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few discussions

_You know what I wish?_

_It was just you and me_

_Sitting in this corner bar_

_You could tell me how you are_

_But I'm not gonna lie or anything_

_You don't even have to speak_

_If you keep looking at me_

_I won't let you in my heart_

_But you were always on my mind._

  * **Kathleen Edwards**



* * *

“What about this one? Look.”

Susannah turned. Jake Chambers was standing there in the dusty gloom of Took’s general store, holding up a black blouse, his expression questioning. Oy had been summarily banned from the store by its bad-tempered owner as soon as the four of them had entered ( _Nayyup, nayyup, don’t’chee bring that dairty bumbler-beast in’ere, don’t’chee never!_ ) and presently he sat on the porch patiently enough, licking one paw and watching his companions going about their business just inside with bright eyes.

“Honey, that’s a lady’s shirt.”

“I know it!” Jake looked a little indignant. “It’s not for me, it’s for Rane!”

“Roland wanted us to get her a dress,” Eddie remarked from where he stood perusing the racks for a few articles of his own. “Though I can’t for the life of me imagine that girl in a dress any more than I can imagine Oy in one, if we’re being honest.”

“Yeah, well Roland ain’t exactly Calvin Klein and I can’t think of a single reason why he’d want to put that girl in a shift besides so he could get a good look at her ass while she’s in it, pardon my French,” Susannah remarked dryly. “She doesn’t strike me as the skirt sort, either. That looks just fine, Jake, honeybunch. I believe she’ll like it and say thankya. Grab two, matter of fact, just to be safe.”

“Here, kiddo.” Eddie pulled a short black dress off a hanger and tossed it to Jake, who caught it deftly. “Just in case our brave leader tries to kick up some shit.”

“And it’s just like that, huh? Not even bothering to check the size or anything? Boy oh boy, you fellas are about the worst.” Susannah was shaking her head, laughing. “I guess all us women folk are built just the same exact way, huh?”

“Well, we don’t exactly have her here to try it on, Suze, and I never claimed to be an expert in women’s clothing. I’m learning on the fly here, babydoll.”

“Here. Lemme see it, Jakey boy.” Suze caught the dress as Jake tossed it to her (sai Took was watching them throw his stock hither and yon to each other with a marked frown by now), then held it up to her own torso appraisingly. “She’s a little bit longer and skinnier than me around the middle but I think that oughta do. Ask a woman next time, white boy, otherwise she could be swimming it for all you know,” she added, hucking the dress back to her husband.

“What’d you make of all that crap Roland was spouting off this morning?” Eddie asked Susannah, folding a couple shirts over his forearm and glancing at her.

“What crap do you mean, sugarbunch?”

“Well, fuck, didn’t you hear the way he was talking?” He put on a deep and rather strikingly accurate impression of Roland’s low, flat timbre: “Thee looks fair well this morning. Thee looks true lovely this morning to mine eye. Thee looks like a big ass tuna casserole this morning that I’d like to dip my beak into, do ya.”

Jake burst out laughing. Though Susannah did not indulge her husband - she knew better than to encourage him - the grin on her face spoke loud enough.

“Quit it, Eddie. You’re being obscene.”

“I’m just saying, he was almost kissing her ass a little bit for a minute there. That isn’t like him.”

“Well, some men can give ladies compliments without worrying it’ll shrink their manhood a couple inches. Cover your ears, sweetheart, I’m speaking out of turn,” Suze added at Jake, who flushed, still grinning about Eddie’s jest.

“Come on, Suze, don’t act like you didn’t notice it. That was very out of character, jokes aside.”

“Eddie’s right, he was acting so _weird_ around her. You think he likes her or something?” Jake added, glancing at Susannah. “Like . . . I dunno, like he’s got a crush on her?”

This word, spoken in relation to their dinh - a man so hard-packed and relentless that he was often emotionally inscrutable even to his trailmates - was so outlandish that it was almost funny. Susannah hesitated, pursing her lips.

“I dunno, sugar. She’s a pretty girl, maybe he’s just being foolish because of that. Sometimes men act a little silly around good-looking women, is all. Isn’t that right, Mister Dean?”

“Well, you saw how stupid I acted around _you_ for the first couple weeks after you showed up, so maybe so.”

“Margaret Eisenhart is pretty,” Jake said fairly. “So is Tian’s wife, Zalia. Roland wasn’t being all weird around _them_.”

“Yeah, they’re pretty, sure. They’re candles, Jakey-boy, but that Rane girl, she’s a _bonfire_. Know what I’m saying?” Eddie was shaking his head. “We called a lady like that a unicorn, back home, because you weren’t apt to see a real eye-popper like that but once in a . . .” He trailed off, catching his wife’s eye.

“Have a care, chum,” she remarked coolly, one eyebrow cocked. “You’re traversing some treacherous territory over there.”

“Sorry, sweetheart. Ignore my mouth.” Eddie had chosen a third shirt for Roland, this one an open-throated white bastian that would not have looked out of place on a knight out of the Dark Ages. “It’s weird to see him like that, though. Like a school kid or some damn thing."

“Do you think they’ve made it to the Manni yet?” Jake asked.

From the doorway of the general store - speaking softly, clearly aware his presence was not welcome - Oy murmured, “Manni! Ake!”

“Shush, Oy.” Jake was looking at Susannah and Eddie. “I still don’t know why he wanted her to go with him in the first place. It’s not like she knows anything about what’s going on.”

“Maybe it’s the fact that she’s one of the Eldar, or whatever it is,” Susannah suggested. “Maybe the Manni know about them.”

“Or maybe it’s the fact that she’s drop-dead knock-your-ass-clean-out gorgeous and Roland wanted to enjoy the scenery,” Eddie added dryly.

Susannah swiped at him. He dodged her hand, laughing.

“White boy, I’m about to bite your wrist if you keep up that mess.”

“Okay, okay, Christ, sorry.”

“Let’s get this paid for,” Jake remarked, looking around. There were other patrons in the general store, and they were all watching the three outlanders shopping with clear, avid interest. “I feel like if we don’t we’re gonna start getting asked questions a little earlier than we want.”

  
  


THE trail to the Manni ended abruptly not long after Rane and Roland enjoyed their brief hiatus. They had left their ponies a little ways back; the way up was narrow indeed, so much so that the two of them were backed against the rock wall, edging their way on. Rane could see, beyond the toes of her boots, a whistling drop that might have measured some thousand-odd feet. If she slipped and fell, she’d smash every bone in her body on the way down and likely end her long, strange life as a paralyzed invalid, if she didn’t die outright.

“God, I hate heights,” she remarked, low. Her heart was thumping frantically just beneath her shirt, and this time it had nothing to do with Roland’s presence. “How much further?”

Roland shook his head, though Rane didn’t see it; she didn’t dare take her eyes from the expansive emptiness stretching out beneath her. “I know not. I was asked to meet Henchick on this mountain, but not made privy to how far the trail leading to him was.”

“For what? To sort of pass the time of day? Exchange recipes? What are we doing?”

“There’s something in this cave, Rane, that we’ll need to use before our time in this place is done. And it’s to do with what sleeps in the Pere’s church, too.”

Rane, who had not given conscious thought to the dark weight she’d felt in Our Lady Serenity since that morning, said aloud, “That black ball.”

Roland glanced sidelong at her, his shirt ripping against his lean chest in the fierce winds, surprised. “Do you say so? Hav’ee seen it with your own eyes?”

Rane shook her head. “No. It just comes to me that way. Is that what it is? I see it in my head as a sort of . . . almost like an eyeball. A big, black eyeball. I know that can’t be what it _is_ , but -”

“I know not, because I haven’t clapped eyes on it, but I believe that’s likely close enough a description. You’re trig indeed, if you can tell what the thing looks like from such a distance,” he added, sounding faintly impressed. “I’d not have suspected it.”

“Sometimes I feel like it’s a little bit of a curse,” Rane replied, low. The rocky trail was widening a little bit now, coming to a sort of mouth, and she was blessedly glad for it. “Some things aren’t meant to be seen by the likes of us, and that . . . that _thing_ that Callahan’s got tucked away in his church, that feels like one of them. My dad’s people have a word for things like that. _Húna’nin_. Means cursed. You know it?”

Though Roland didn’t say so, the expert way she pronounced this term, rolling her tongue and giving it a silky, foreign quality, was powerfully sexy to him. He could imagine, with perfectly lurid clarity, her rolling on top of him and speaking that tongue as her lips lingered above his, her dark hair falling around his face and her hands against his cheeks, like she’d done earlier that afternoon. Aloud, he said, “No. My knowledge of the Eldar’s spoken word is cursory at best.” His hands were against the rock wall, his face turned from her. When he spoke, his voice was almost absurdly casual. “Shall we speak on what happened between us on this mountain or not?”

Rane smiled despite her terror at the height of their positions. “Would you like to?”

Roland made a small, noncommittal sound. Rane thought he sounded a trifle embarrassed.

“Do you wish we hadn’t?” she asked him frankly. “You think it’s going to gum things up?”

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

“But it was just that one time. Just once. Right?”

To this Roland said nothing for a long moment. Rane chanced a glance over at him and saw the expression of pensive consideration on his face plain enough.

“You got something to say to me, Roland?”

“No, good lady, I haven’t.”

“Can you at least answer me that?”

“Answer you what?”

“Was that all it was?”

They’d reached the mouth of the cave, and Rane grasped Roland’s arm, pulling him back toward her. He turned willingly enough, and with one hand she touched his cheek, lifting her mouth to his, and kissed him gently. It was a brush of the lips, that was all, but Rane could feel her heart starting to pound beneath her shirt again even so.

Roland caressed her cheek gently. “I like thy lips on mine, that I’ll admit.”

“Would you do it again, if you had the chance? No regrets?”

“Thee’d not dare ask me that right now, on the cusp of the thing,” said Roland softly, but he let his forehead rest against hers for a moment, eyes shut, before pulling away. “We’ve business to attend to, Rane.”

Rane released him, watching him step away from her with a heavy (and still-racing) heart, her brow knit. After a moment she followed after him, the cliff wind whipping her long hair about her face.

  
  



	12. Henchick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland and Rane meet the Manni leader in the Cave of Voices

_I know you might roll your eyes at this,_

_But I'm so glad that you exist._

  * **The Weakerthans**



  
  


* * *

Though Rane wasn’t familiar with the books, Eddie Dean remarked later that Henchick looked like something straight out of _Lord of the Rings_ , and he wasn’t wrong. The man was tall, thin and elderly, with a knotted white beard that hung nearly to his waist and eyes the color of old silver. When Roland and Rane entered the little cave, the strange thing it held was quite immediately in evidence; as Henchick greeted the gunslinger, Rane peered over his shoulder, her eyes wide.

“It’s a _door_!” she remarked, quite unable to help herself. “Holy shit, it’s a goddamn fucking _door_! _Look_ at that!”

The wonder of the thing was so huge - so _startling_ \- that it threatened to bowl her right over. The damned thing was just sitting there attached to nothing at all, perfectly upright and straight, held so by some sort of force Rane was sure she didn’t know. Henchick glanced at her over Roland’s shoulder, looking a little surprised by her presence.

“Did’ee say thee’d bring another of your party, sai gunslinger? For I’ve not brought noon vittles enough’er three, so I didn’t.”

His accent was so absurdly thick that Rane almost didn’t understand what he was saying, but Roland seemed to, well enough. He waved a dismissive hand.

“Never mind it, sai Henchick, we dined fair well before we rode out.” _And worked off some calories on the way up_ , he thought wryly but didn’t add. “This is Rane, she’s of my band, and of the Eldar.”

Henchick looked interested by this indeed as his eyes fell on her. “Does’ee speak that fair tongue, lady? I’ve not passed a word of it for donkey’s years.”

“ _Im’ped a’lamb_ ,” Rane replied, nodding. Her eyes were still flicking back to the door, wide and incredulous. “At least most of the dialects. There are a few I can't, but I can understand them all, for the most part.”

“Ah. _Mae g‘ovannen_. _Whiu gar cen’tul_?”

Rane blinked, pleasantly surprised by this. “You speak it like someone raised on it, mister.”

“Aye, fair well, I like to think, lady. My da’ taught me and my brothers, long and ago, do ya.”

“I don’t know why I’ve come here, to answer your question. I just ended up in this place. I didn’t ride in with Roland and his buddies.”

“ _Su níniatha n'i lû n'i a’govenitham_?”

Rane looked momentarily surprised. “I beg your pardon?”

“I ask’ee what you make of this man,” said Henchick, quite boldly, not bothering to veil the question in Elvish this time. He lifted a chin at Roland. “Do’ee bring harm with him, or help? I’d hear it from your own mouth, for me and mine were raised to trust such as the Eldar, so we were, they ‘twere kindled ‘neath the grace and favor of the Valar.”

Rane wasn’t sure why this strange man was asking this of her - she, who had simply turned up out of nowhere in this place and had no business passing judgment on anybody, least of all Roland Deschain, who she’d met not two days past and knew nearly nothing about save the size of his manhood and the tempo of his sex - but still she shook her head. “No, he doesn’t bring harm. We’re trying to fix this for you guys.”

Roland noted the use of that word - _we_ \- and smiled a little, pleased. So she was beginning to allow herself to fall in with them. The idea was heartening.

“Would you like it in my language?” Rane was asking.

Henchick was nodding. “Aye, it’d set my heart at ease.”

“Okay, then. _Aye’weled can y’niniathog, fuiilos’tren’ynin._ That’s Quenya, the high tongue, and I’ll say it again in Sindarin if you wish me to.” Rane was a little amused at the high-browed, formal way she spoke now as she translated. She was talking fancy, though she didn’t mean to. Her father would have laughed. Aloud, Henchick told her no, shaking his head.

“You’ve done plenty, fair lady. No need.”

“What _is_ that?” Rane asked, unable to help herself, pointing to the door in the cave behind them. “And why does it smell so bad in here? Is it just me? Am I stroking out?”

“Thee needs a bath, mayhap,” said Roland, unable to help himself. It was a rare moment of levity for him, but it was lost on Rane, who barely heard him. She was still gaping at the door.

“Death is what you smell,” said Henchick simply, grim. “And thee sees the doorway, lady, though I cannae tell you what’ee is any better’n any holy man. True to our creed, ‘tis a way in and out of other times and places, d’ya ken, something we use for enlightenment. A thing of the old people.”

“This is where you found the Old Fella,” said Roland, speaking for the first time in a few minutes, looking at Henchick. He’d been happy enough to let Rane palaver with the man, but now that her bewilderment at the door had taken her summarily over, making her gape-mouthed silly, he stepped back to the fore. “In front of yonder door. Am I wrong to assume?”

“Nayyup, sai, not in the very least.” Henchick was nodding. “Here in this very place, some yesteryear gone now.”

“What in the fuck am I looking at?” Rane asked frankly, her eyes wide, her expression almost comically astonished. She’d covered her nose with the hem of her shirt, yanking it up to do so and exposing a few inches of her flat belly, and her voice was a little muffled as a result. Roland had placed his neckerchief over his mouth and nose as well; the stench was potent indeed, a graveyard smell of decay and filth, and beneath their feet small bones littered, as if little animals had found this place out of curiosity and simply lingered until they perished, perhaps watching the door with the same incredulity that Rane was. “I mean, just what in the fuck am I _looking_ at here?”

“Speak not in jest, lady,” said Henchick, “for thee’re in the presence of the infinite.”

“I don’t speak in jest, I just speak in fucking . . . _shock_. That thing has me unnerved as hell, I don’t know why.”

“You daren’t touch that door, lady,” said Roland sharply as Rane moved forward towards the back of the cave quite fearlessly. Her boots crackled against the bones on the floor. “You daren’t, now, that’s something not meant for the likes of thee out of rash hand. Come back here and leave it alone until we palaver.”

Rane glanced back at him over one shoulder, her dark hair slung in a rippling sheet down her lean back, her eyes bright and present on his beneath her dark brows, and in that moment, caught half in the shadows and half beneath the grim early afternoon light streaming through the mouth of the cave, she was so startlingly beautiful that Roland’s breath seemed to shudder to a stop in his chest and his coarse remonstration melted away. He wondered if she knew what sort of power she had in her hand, not that which she explored with the sword that hung on her belt but with that she wielded using her simple gaze, piercing a man to the very beating heart of him with just a glance of her enchanting eyes. He could have frozen, spellbound by her like a bird before a snake, and had he had her not half an hour before? How severely was he laboring beneath her now, exactly, if the simple weight of her eyes could paralyze him so and kick his usually gentle heartbeat into such speed?

“I have to touch it or I’m gonna go nuts,” Rane said simply. “Want me to sign a waiver?”

Roland didn’t know what a waiver was, but he’d heard Eddie reference them in the past in sarcasm and understood well enough that this was meant as tongue-in-cheek. “Nay, lady. Tread cautiously if you must, then, do ya, though I don’t like it a bit.”

Rane had turned from him and presently ran a hand down the door. It wasn’t remarkable in any way beside the obvious; though it hung in the air, hinged on nothing, it was just plain old oily ghostwood, and Rane slipped a hand around the handle, grasping it gently and trying to turn it in both directions. It didn’t budge a single inch, as she’d suspected (and if it had, would she have opened it to see what lay beyond? Perhaps, but likely not. The thing frightened her a little). She reached up and traced the engraving on the top with her fore and middle finger, her brow furrowed.

“What’s this?” she said softly, glancing back. She looked at Henchick. “ _A’van pen nin’avon_ , sai Henchick? Do you know? Or Roland, do you?”

Roland didn’t know this Elvish phrase, but he surmised what it meant. “It means ‘unfound.’ Say true, sai Henchick?”

“Aye.”

“It feels fucky,” said Rane faintly. Her palm was resting against the flat ghostwood now, her eyes lidded, feeling what there was to feel. “Like a hole in the world.”

“And well enough that’s what it is,” said Henchick fairly.

“Do you guys hear -?”

Roland stepped forward suddenly with hideous speed and snatched her arm, yanking her sharply closer to him. Though she’d suspected he was fast - she’d nearly been winged by him once already, after all, and his draw had been quick indeed on that morning - she was still surprised by it. He grasped her near to his chest with one arm around her shoulders and pointed, the smell of his sweat strong against him.

“Look at that. You’d not like to end up at the bottom, I’d wager. Watch thy step, woman.”

Rane did, her heart dropping. There was, she realized with a jolt, a vast, whistling hole just next to the door, and Roland had spotted it and saved her from what perhaps would have been a bad death just now. The stone, glass-slick, sloped off and dropped for what seemed like miles.

“Thee hears voices?” Henchick asked her.

Rane nodded, though she was listening now, motionless, still pressed gently against Roland’s chest. “People I know,” she murmured. “Cruel things.”

_You’ll wear out your boots riding to hell, daughter mine._ This was her father, dry and accusatory. _Can’t settle down and rest for shit, girl, such a goddamned busybody. I wish I’d never gat you at all. What a mistake._

Albus Dumbledore, years dead in some time and place far removed: _Your capabilities far outstrip the reach of your heart. You flit from one to another like a shark between prey. I wish your suitors joy of you, for they are damned from the moment they meet your eyes and fall under your spell. You are evil._

Harry Potter, his voice low and angry: _You left me with Sirius’s daughter. What would you have me do?_

And now, Dutch Van Der Linde, someone Rane had worked with in some other life and eventually killed on a mountainside, revenge for her slain lover: _You ain’t gonna try to tell me the lay of the land, woman, not the veriest chance in hell, because you ain’t been nothing but trouble to me and my boys and I shoulda told you to ride on._

Arthur Morgan - shockingly - came next, and Rane felt her heart cramp. She had not heard his voice in a coon’s age, and its familiarity and well-loved timbre was heartbreaking: _I never quit loving you, but sometimes I wonder if I was just a damned fool for it. You’re about the flightiest woman I ever saw. Don’t hold allegiance to jack shit, not even yourself._

“They’re not true ghosts,” said Roland at her side. He was hearing his own phantoms, and his face was a little pale. “Just echoes drawn from your mind, do ya ken. Pay them no mind. Am I right, sai Henchick?”

“As far’s I can tell, gunslinger, you are. For I hear my da’, and the thing he speaks he’d never in life have said to me, not even drunk. They called this the Cave of Voices, you ken, before we discovered him that they call the Old Fella layin’ here, and now ya see why.”

Rane nodded, heartened a little by this. She glanced up at Roland, stepping back from the door. “Thanks for snatching me up.”

“Lady-sai, I’d not have’ee falling into a hole and busting yourself up until our business here is done,” said Roland with a smirk.

“Well you’re nothing if not compassionate.”

“What did you feel, when you touched it?” Roland himself seemed reticent to put his hands on the door.

“A vibration. And heat. That damned thing is _real_ ,” Rane remarked again, sounding blown over. “Real as fucking hell. Just sitting there.” She turned and glanced at Henchick, who was standing in the doorway to the cave, arms crossed, watching all this. He seemed unwilling to come any further inside. “Is it magic?”

Henchick considered this. “After a fashion, aye. But not of the sort thee’s thinking, I’d wager. Thy sorcery, does it still lay? Does’ee have the ability? Or have I sized thee wrong?”

Roland glanced at Rane, bewildered by this. She had not spoken of any such thing yet. Rane was nodding though, a little hesitantly.

“My conduit is broken some years gone now, but I’m sure I still have the ability, just not the means.” Again, she was amused by her own stiff, formal manner of speaking. It seemed to come naturally around this man. “That’s not what makes this door -?”

“It’s an ancient thing, and odd, but I think not. I’d have thee both come away, ifn’t it vexes ya,” Henchick added, gesturing, his tone faintly anxious. “That such a thing ought not be touched and meandered around seems fair plain to me, and I want for the daylight, so I do.”

Roland and Rane both made their way out of the darkness of the cave at his request. Stepping into the sunlight was nearly blinding for them both; they’d only been inside the deep of the place for five or six minutes, but it was an adjustment, and they both stood blinking and covering their eyes with their hands.

“How long since you found Callahan here?”

Henchick considered this, then shook his head slowly. “Gunslinger, I know not. For time is -”

“Yes, in drift.” Roland sounded a little impatient. “How long would you _say_?”

“Five years or longer, for he’s had time long enough to build his church and fill it with superstitious fools, ye ken.”

“And he brought with him that ball? That Bend O' the 'Bow?”

Henchick nodded again, but the look on his face was one now of deep, religious dread. He ran a hand down his face, clutching his beard a moment, then said, “Aye, he brought with him that slick black thing, trapped in a box. ‘Twas opened a bit, which was why he could travel so from wherever he came, I’d wager. I don’t like to speak on it. I don’t even like to _think_ on it, ye ken. I fear it, so I do. A thing that ought not to be at all. Made me feel weak, as I drew near him that day. And _dim_.”

“I’ll bet it did,” said Roland grimly.

“Thee’d not play about with that thing,” said Henchick, low. “I know not what it truly is, but if I go my whole life without clapping eyes ‘pon it again I’shd die pleased enough.”

“And yet we may have to, though the idea gives me no great joy.” Roland glanced at Rane, who was looking backwards at the door again, her eyes distant. “You’ve got the thousand yard stare about you, as Eddie and Jake say.”

“Sorry.” Rane shook her head, dragging her gaze away from the door. “That thing weighs on me, for some reason.”

“I’d take my lady and go back, if thee’s not fussed,” said Roland, brisk now. “I’d like to reach the Pere before suppertime, and our horses are hitched on the mountainside waiting on us. I’d not risk them spooking off the ledge.”

“Sure enough, gunslinger.”

“I want to thank you for taking us up to that cave, Henchick, and for telling me what thee knows.”

Henchick nodded. “I send a message up, that thee and thine might save us from the Wolves this time, and that you’ve one of the fair folken on your side heartens me inside.” He nodded to Rane. “Though I won’t hold out hope, so I say. Mayhap this time they’ll kill us all, rather than just steal our babbies away from us.”

“Perhaps so,” said Roland, quite unsympathetically.

“Yet still, perhaps we’re well met.”

“Perhaps we are,” said Roland, and giving the man a final nod, he grasped Rane’s arm and started down the mountain again.

Once they were past the most perilous bit of the trail - the part where thousands of feet of empty space stretched before their boots - Rane glanced at Roland and said, “You told that guy I was your lady.”

“It pleased Henchick for me to speak so,” said Roland dryly, as if he had been waiting for her to ask this. Up ahead, their ponies were still tied off on a tree, ears pricked at their advent, quite relaxed. “Need I say it? You aren’t. I took you for far more trig, if you must ask.”

Rane was grimly amused by his insistence. “Is that right? I thought we were halfway to going steady.”

“I’ve met thee not a day’s past. Of course not.”

“Enough with this thee and thy shit. Can we make this a little more casual? I feel like I’m talking to Shakespeare or something.”

“Fine. _You_ are not my lady. Does that make you happy? For I spoke on this to my ka-tet this morning exhaustively enough and I don’t feel much like speaking on it any further.” Roland’s tone was exasperated and a little cool. “Thee - _you_ \- should know the lay of things, and see the size of it. That we lay together means not much in the grand scheme of things, and I’d not have you thinking otherwise. Have I told it plain enough?”

Rane said nothing, Truthfully she felt a little cramp of unhappiness in her chest at these words as they made their way back to the ponies.

" _Have_ I?" Roland pressed, glancing back at her. "For I'd not speak on this further, as I said, we've more pressing business than such things."

"Yes, yes, Jesus Christ." Rane was a little flushed. "I wasn't being serious, Roland, but you've made your damn point, I get it. I'm off the radar. Thanks for hammering it home. Spare my confidence, why don't you."

THEY rode down the mountain in relative silence. When they passed the place where the two of them had come together, Rane glanced at the rock wall and saw that the Tengwar script which had been chalked there was gone. Somehow, it didn't surprise her.  
  
  



	13. The Palaver II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland and his tet speak on the day's goings-on

_Loosely or tightly_

_Everything fits_

_Even the wrist on your arm_

_Grow and decay_

_Grow and decay_

_It's only forever_

_It's only forever._

  * **Soundgarden**



* * *

Rosalita had prepared a little spread of cold chicken and greens by the time Roland and Rane rode back into the rectory’s dooryard, Roland now with his legs kicked free of the stirrups and clearly saddlesore. Rane was a little achy herself; she was out of horseback practice and made no private business of rubbing the back of her jeans ruefully as they made their way indoors. Callahan saw this from where he sat at the little dining table on his screened-in porch, smirking over a cup of coffee.

“Hile,” he said. “That trip mustn’t have felt very nice, I take it?”

“If we’re being completely honest, my ass is saddle-raw as blue-eyed fuck,” Rane replied bluntly as she took a seat.

From the floor at Jake’s feet, Oy said, “ _Fuck_!” Jake snorted. He, Susannah and Eddie were sitting at the table as well, all three picking at their meals.

“You guys look like you were ridden hard and put away wet.”

“I never knew just talking to people for so long could make you so _tired_ ,” said Jake.

“We all three crashed pretty hard when we got back from our little palaver with the folks in town,” said Eddie, nodding his agreement. “And I tell you what, if Rosalita hadn’t gotten us up for supper, I believe I could have made it all the way through the rest of the night. Hell, probably half of tomorrow, too.”

“Cry your pardon, gunslinger,” said Rosie from where she was stowing dishes away behind them, sounding amused. “Couldn’t well hav’ee starving before the Wolves come.”

“We’ve much to discuss tonight,” said Roland. He’d pulled his tobacco out and presently was rolling a cigarette on the Pere’s table, his mouth turned down. “I’d not have us sleep ‘til it’s done, this is far too important. How did you fare in town? I’d know.”

“Roland, I didn’t think those people were _ever_ gonna shut up, and I don’t mind saying so,” said Susannah. “They talked us up, down and side to side until we finally managed to high-tail it outta there.”

“They seemed to take a shine to us, though, once we started answering their questions,” said Jake fairly. “I think they’re more comfortable with us now, anyways. At least most of them.”

“Got us some fresh clothes, too,” Eddie added, jerking a thumb vaguely backwards. “Can’t say I care too much for that Took dude, though. He had a pretty shitty attitude about us being in his store. Just over there grumbling and giving Suze nasty looks and kicking Oy outside.”

Callahan nodded, grim over his coffee mug. “Aye, that man’s what we from New York side like to call a pretentious prick, and always has been, do ya.”

Rane laughed, low. Like the rest of them, she was pushing the food on the plate Rosie had set before her around without much conviction. It had been a weird day, and she felt a little discouraged at the core of her, though she couldn’t tell if it was Roland’s harsh rejection or the cave’s strange doorway or what. A song had occurred to her on their ride back down, one from her old life - Wayfaring Stranger - and she’d found herself thinking on the words, realizing how aptly they fit her now. _I know dark clouds will gather 'round me. I know my way is hard and steep_ . Her way had been hard and steep, indeed. And there were details of her old life recurring to her now, slow and steady, along with the recollection of what she was: a _peredhil_ , a half-bred abomination of the natural order of things, damned and cursed with some sort of conditional immortality which caused her to simply die over and over in different realities, perhaps eternally. How she had forgotten these things so easily was lost on her.

“Did’ee take yon lady and speak to Henchick in the cave?” Callahan was asking Roland.

Roland nodded, popping a match alight and lighting his smoke at the corner of his mouth.

“So what was up there, besides Gandalf?” Eddie asked, looking curious.

Roland waved the match out, looking at him, then glanced at Rane. “I’d have you tell them, sai Roth. You’ve looked at it with fresh eyes.”

“Oh, man, you guys are never gonna believe this shit,” said Rane, shaking her head. “It’s the damndest fucking thing.”

“Try us, sugarbunch,” said Susannah, amused. “You might be surprised.”

“It’s a _door_ . A goddamned - sorry,” she added quickly as Callahan gave her a warning glance. “A _door_ , just sitting there in mid air. Just _floating_.”

Rane had expected gasps, maybe bewildered questions or widened eyes, but to her astonishment, none of her company seemed very startled by this information at all. _Interested_ , maybe, but not shocked. Jake looked at Roland questioningly.

“Like the one you pulled Susannah and Eddie through?”

Roland nodded again. “Perhaps even the same very one. I can’t say for sure, but that’s what my gut tells me.”

“You guys aren’t - I dunno, _surprised_ about this at all?” Rane asked, looking around at the faces sat at the table with her. “You’re not surprised that there’s a fucking _door_ , just _floating around_ up there?”

“It’s like I said, sugar, we’ve seen some shit on our trail,” Susannah told her. “I guess Roland didn’t tell you how the rest of us came to end up here yet, if you’ve gotta ask why we aren’t surprised to be hearing about a door to noplace.”

“Not noplace. _Any_ place. Or so I suspect. And no, I haven’t spoken of it to her. That’s what this night’s palaver is for.” Roland glanced at Callahan, lifting his smoke. “Care to point me towards where I can cash this? I suspect we’re about to pass quite a few words, and I’d not have my voice cracking beneath it over smoke, do ya.”

Callahan lifted his voice, and for a moment his timbre wasn’t that of the Calla at all, but very clearly northeast American, practically dripping New York. “Rosie, bring this guy something to tap into, would ya?”

“Big man, I could listen to you talk all day,” said Eddie fondly, clearly as glad to hear a familiar accent as Rane was.

“Me too,” Jake agreed.

“Henchick tells us that you came through that very door yourself, Pere, some time passed,” said Roland, ignoring this and meeting the Pere’s gaze with his own. Rosie had approached and presently sat a little clay jar before Roland for him to ash into, and Rane saw well enough the interested way she eyed the gunslinger as she did so. She wasn’t the only one eyeballing him with more than a little casual interest, clearly. “Did he speak true?”

“He did. I’ll pass that tale onto you, gunslinger, but not tonight. It’s long and long, and we’d never get a’bed if I started now.” He gestured out the screened window, where the sun was sinking red and low in the sky. West now, Rane noticed; true, due West. Just like Roland had said, it had gone back to the way it was supposed to be. Things were indeed in drift. “Suffice to say I met with a strange man who passed on yonder black travesty to me, and it was that thing that flung me into the Calla. When the Manni happened on me, I was plumb knocked out. Didn’t come to for days. Black Thirteen didn’t travel me gently.”

“Black Thirteen,” said Rane musingly, as if tasting the two words experimentally. “That’s what it’s called?”

Callahan nodded. “It is, though it has many names, or so I’ve heard since coming here.”

“There are more of them? I’d assume that’s where the Thirteen part comes in.”

It was Roland who nodded this time. “Though I’ve not met with them all in my life, there are twelve others all told, wrought by Maerlyn in the times of Arthur Eld to bring havoc into the world, or so it’s said. I’d not bore thee with the legends of such things just yet,” he added, meeting her eyes with her own as he snubbed out his cigarette, blowing twin jets of smoke out of his nostrils. “For I don’t think we’ll meet with the thing just yet, though we’ll need to, soon. Unless you’d like to get it over with this night, Pere.”

This last he turned up at the end, making it the merest question, his eyes on Pere Callahan. That good gentleman shook his head at once.

“I’ll put it off until the end of all the worlds, Roland, I’ll tell no lies. Think me a coward if you will.”

“Not a bit.” Roland seemed satisfied by this. He turned to Rane. “I’d tell you how we came to be a ka-tet, and then I’d hear what happened to you before you came here. It’s no short tale on either end, I suspect, so we may be awake long into the night. Take some coffee.”

“I already told you what happened to me,” said Rane, a little uneasy at this pronouncement. Speaking about where she’d come from . . . that was something she badly didn’t want to do, not to these people who amounted to strangers, even the one she’d lain with. _Especially_ him, matter of fact.

“You gave us the bare bones. I want thee now to flesh it out, sai Roth.”

Rane noted the way he was addressing her now - _sai Roth_ , _thee_ and _thy_ and what-not - and felt a little swoop of regret flare in her stomach. He was putting her squarely in formal acquaintance territory, and reflecting briefly on that what he had told her on the mountain that afternoon - _That we lay together means not much in the grand scheme of things, and I’d not have you thinking otherwise_ \- she realized he’d probably given it to her straight, after all. There had been a little spark of hope in her chest, and even though she’d hated herself for it, the warm gladness it had spurned within her had been a welcome change from the years and years of hollow emptiness that had followed Arthur’s death. She sighed.

“Fine. You go first.”

“If it’s all the same to thee and thine, I’ll turn in, unless you need something more from me,” said Callahan, getting to his feet. “I don’t remember ever being so tired.”

“Take your leave, then, Pere. And thank you for your house and board.”

“You’d do well enough to, for beds’re made up and ready for the lot of you, so they are,” Rosie agreed. She had drawn back to the table and was placing a fresh, lit candle on the tabletop between them. The last was melted down to its dregs, and the light inside the little porch was low and a little sinister. “Tonight, the young soh will bed with’ee, Pere, if you will, and Rane and Susannah and Eddie can sleep where they were night of last.”

“Bed,” Oy murmured with clear wistfulness. He was curled into a comma at Jake’s feet, his ringed eyes lidded. “‘Leep.”

“What about Roland?” Callahan said, glancing at Rosie, his eyebrows high.

“I have a cosy for him, should he like,” Rosie said stolidly, glancing at the gunslinger. “I’ll show it him if he’ll have it, once he’s ready to bed down.”

At this last, Rane glanced at Rosalita sharply, her mouth turned down and her brows knitted, uncertain if she’d just heard what she thought she had. A single look at Roland, however, who was offering Callahan’s housekeeper a knowing, crooked smile, was enough to tell her that she’d understood it just perfectly; this woman was propositioning him, and boldly, too. And good Lord above, was that real, actual _envy_ she felt simmering in her belly right now? She had an idea that it was.

“I may, good lady, at that,” said Roland, quite as blunt. “But not yet, in any case. I’ve much to discuss with my tet, you ken.”

“I ken very well,” said Rosie, and with a demure little smile she turned and strode off, her lean hips ticking. Callahan watched her go, looking bemused, his eyebrows still high. So did Eddie.

“ _Dang_ , Roland!” he remarked, grinning a little. “Did -?”

“Eddie Dean, you hush that pretty mouth of yours for once in your life before you say something rude and embarrass me in company,” said Susannah quickly, glaring at him. Eddie did, still grinning.

“Well, it’s settled, then,” said Callahan, getting to his feet. He, too, seemed quite at peace with leaving this encounter unremarked upon. “Will you retire, too?”

“We’ll stay for another few minutes, as I said, if it does ya,” Roland replied. “Just us five.”

“As you will,” said Callahan, nodding. “Are’ee sure you’ll not turn in, folks? It’s early, but all of you seem done near to death.”

They were, each and every one of them - even Oy - and all of them would have welcomed a long spell on a soft mattress. Nevertheless, Roland shook his head.

“Soon.”

“Alright, then. Give you pleasure of it, gunslingers. Goodnight.”

They all bade him goodnight, and after he’d strode off, a moment of silence passed between them. Outside, the crickets were beginning to chirrup, and the occasional whicker of one of the ponies hitched at the church to graze came to them, too. Rane was looking at Roland, her fists clasped before her mouth, chewing her thumbnail. For all his talk about going hoarse, he was rolling another cigarette presently, his fingers moving with the dexterity of one who has labored beneath this task for years beyond count. Though he didn’t meet her eyes, she could tell by the set of his body and the flicking of his eyes on his tobacco that he knew she was watching him, and perhaps thought it wise not to greet her gaze with his own. Not so soon after being asked by another woman to come to bed with her, in any case, some seven or eight hours after she’d had him inside her to his hilt in the grass and felt his heart pounding against her palm after they’d finished, as intimate as anything. Whatever had transpired, it seemed he was keen enough to put it away from them, and though Rane understood why - there was work to be done, and a bunch of kids to think about - still it vexed her a little.

“Jake,” said Roland, still not looking up. Rane saw his fingers slip a little, scattering some of his tobacco on the tabletop, and realized he was perhaps not as composed and dispassionate as he affected to be, after all. “Tell it back true, gunslinger. Then Susannah and Eddie. It’s not right for me to say how you each came to be here, I suspect, that’s a tale you’ll have to tell each yourselves, you ken.”

“Ken,” Oy agreed sleepily from Jake’s feet. “Ken-ken.”

  
  


THE next three hours were spent in exhaustive conversation as Jake, Eddie and Susannah told Rane of how they’d come to be in Roland’s company. By the end of it, Rane had leaned back in her chair, both boots crossed and resting on the tabletop, arms folded and eyes avid, listening to these stories with clear fascination despite the latening hour. Though Roland didn’t interrupt much, except to add addendums to certain bits (Eddie’s tale, in particular, he amended frequently, speaking on the days that he’d looked after the man as he languished beneath withdrawal, something Eddie seemed at pains to avoid lingering on), he listened intently nonetheless, despite knowing them likely backwards and forth.

“Jesus fucking _Christ_.” Rane glanced furtively over one shoulder to see if Callahan was storming out of his quarters to berate her again for her blaspheming, but he was in evidence only by the faint snores coming from his bedroom. “So how long? How long since you’ve all been here?”

Susannah, Jake and Eddie glanced between themselves. Eddie shrugged. So did Susannah.

“Roland?” said Jake.

“I don’t know for sure, either, say sorry,” Roland told them, shaking his head. He’d rolled his fifth smoke and was puffing on it now idly, his legs crossed, one elbow resting on the table. His voice was indeed growing a little rough. “Had I to guess, I’d put it at a year, perhaps a year and a half. Though time is -”

“Yeah, in drift, we know, sugar.” Susannah was nodding. “Don’t we ever.”

“That sounds about right to me,” said Eddie, shrugging. “I’d have put it closer to ten or eleven months, if we’re gonna split hairs, but who the hell can say at this point. Could very damn well be we’ve all been here half a decade and just don’t realize it.”

“How _old_ are you?” Rane asked Roland bluntly, meeting his eyes.

“Why do you ask?” Roland asked her, smoking and watching her with some interest. “And why in that way?”

“Because I’ve met immortals, and you don’t seem like one of them.”

She didn’t expect him to tell her - in fact, she thought he’d change the subject and write this query off - but to her surprise he answered her without fanfare.

“Five score times three, plus some sixty-odd more, to my telling,” said Roland, “though I’m sure I don’t look it. What did’ee put me at, on that mountain? Thirty-five? Forty?”

It was a little slip of the tongue, Rane thought, and she saw both Eddie and Susannah look at him with interest. Rane felt a little ember-burn of fierce satisfaction at their curious glances. Try and deny _that_ , why don't you, Mister Thee's-Not-My-Lady Deschain.

“On that mountain,” she said, enunciating these three words pointedly as she met his eyes with her own, a little smile playing about her mouth, “I’d have put you at fifty on the outside, yeah. Certainly not three-hundred-odd years old, Roland. Seems there’s a lot I don’t know about you.”

“Seems so,” said Roland, looking at her unabashedly.

“Roland, what about the jawbone? I thought you were up there in the thousands?” Eddie was watching his dinh, bewildered.

“I may be. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter much to me, Eddie, as long as I still draw breath long enough to reach my goal.” Roland shrugged, smashing out his smoke. The little clay tray Rosalita had provided for him was filling up quick. “Rane, tell us the fullness of what happened before you came here, do ya. It's late and we’ve more to speak on.”

Rane took her boots down off the table, straightening. “Can I give you the cliff notes? I don’t like talking about it, if we’re being honest.”

Eddie eyed her wryly. “You think I like talking about waiting to convulse to death while I was laying in the sand coming down off smack, with this grumpy old asshole meandering around and trying not to die of a blood infection after getting those two fingers eaten off at the same damn time? Because I got news for ya, sweetheart, if that’s the case.”

“And me, getting both my gams chopped off before the knee,” Susannah added grimly. “Not to mention Detta running around in my skin kicking up shit.”

“Or me, getting run over,” Jake added. “You know what I remember most about that?”

Rane shook her head, eyeing him warily.

“My guts shooting out back of me. When the tire ran over my belly.”

Rane leaned forward a little, placing both hands over her mouth and looking at him with frank horror. The way he spoke of the lurid details of his own death - as matter-of-fact as a professor standing before his classroom, talking about the fiscal outcomes of the Civil War or something - was somehow the worst of all. What little of Rosie’s cold supper she’d managed to coax down her gullet that evening threatened to make an encore appearance in her throat. At Jake’s feet, Oy whined, low.

“Jesus Christ.” This time Rane was too shaken to even look backwards for Pere Callahan’s distasteful form appearing in the doorway of the porch to come down on her for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Her hazel eyes were on Jake’s blue ones, wide and unnerved. “I’m so sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to . . . I dunno, to make it seem like what you went through was less, or something.”

“You can make it up to me by telling us what happened to you,” the kid replied, and shrugged. “Seems important that we know.”

Rane leaned back again, passing a hand over her face, then nodded reluctantly. She’d have bucked up more, struggled against this, if it wasn’t for Jake. She liked him quite a lot, and his request had bypassed her defenses and stricken her directly in the heart, as was surely his shrewd intention. “Okay. Okay, then.”

She told them what had happened to her, starting with her life in London, training to become an Auror, laboring beneath the disapproval of the Eldar and eventually falling in with the Order of the Phoenix during Voldemort’s resurgence after she’d been turned loose from the administration she worked for. Though she didn’t speak of Sirius Black outright - she’d have happily gone forward without them knowing every lurid detail of her past romances, this one especially, being so long gone - Susannah, ever quick on the uptake, interrupted her as she spoke of her daughter.

“You’re leaving something out, sugar,” she remarked. She had her coffee mug clasped in both her hands, and though she looked tired, she was watching Rane closely. “Who was your girl’s daddy? Somebody or nobody?”

Rane considered lying for a moment, then put the thought away. May as well spit in the ocean and see if it comes back. The people she was keeping company with were a far cry from impressionable. “Somebody. His name was Sirius. He died in a skirmish a few months before she was born, and I spent the next few years looking for the woman who did it. Killed her, when I found her.”

“This is starting to sound an awful lot like what happened with you and this Arthur Morgan guy,” Eddie remarked. “The meet, the schmooze, the murder, then the years and years looking for revenge like Edmond Dantes or some fuckin’ thing. Didn’t you have anything better to do, sweetheart? Get some therapy or something, at least?”

Rane turned her eyes slowly to Eddie Dean, and though her expression didn’t change - in fact, she barely moved - the sudden, powerful chill baking off of her was so present and potent it seemed to hum in the air like electricity. They all felt it at once. Eddie recoiled a little, drawing back, his easy gaze on hers becoming suddenly sharp and watchful. Her eyes were cold beneath her brows as she trained them on his. It was that same look, Susannah thought, that she’d had that morning, as she had spoken to her about staying away from Roland in any capacity besides the professional. Like a predator, still and poised to pounce if need be, all cold-blooded instinct and muscle and sinuous speed. Whatever sort of lineage she hailed from, Suze thought privately that she wouldn’t like to meet the rest of them, if this half-blooded woman was so scary as all this. At Jake’s feet, Oy growled low in his throat, eyeing Rane watchfully, his hackles lifting a little, clearly picking up on this as well.

“You’re saying I should have let it go?” Rane asked Eddie, very low. She lifted her chin at Susannah. “If something like that had happened to your wife, would you just have closed up shop and kept walking on? Let whoever did it get away?”

Eddie hesitated, the blithe smile falling from his mouth like lead. He glanced at Roland for help, his brow a little knitted, uneasy. Roland was offering none, though; he was rolling another cigarette, currently licking the paper shut and eyeing Rane with something like clinical interest, as if he were a wildlife photographer and Rane was a Savannah carnivore displaying some new and interesting behavioral pattern or something. Eddie cleared his throat.

“No, I guess not, and I cry your pardon. I didn’t mean to offend you, Rane, not at all. I guess I just don’t really understand any of this shit, that’s all.” 

Rane lifted her coffee mug, downed the now-cold brew in a go, and slammed it back on the tabletop, shifting in her chair and letting her gaze drift away from his. Eddie was glad as hell for it. He liked being underneath her angry eyes not in the slightest. “I didn’t have anything better to do, to answer your question. After I died the first time -”

“How?” Jake interrupted.

Rane tapped the center of her chest. “Stabbed.”

“Is that where comes the scar you bear?” Roland asked her.

Here, again, was another little misstep on his part. He’d felt the long, rough mark running a little left-ways from just beneath her breastbone to about two inches above her navel, a wound that would have been damn-near fatal in its infancy, as they had made love on the mountainside that morning and he’d run his hands up her lean torso beneath her shirt. He hadn’t asked her about it then because he’d been far too hot-blooded for her to think of anything besides her sex, but now he wished bitterly that he had. There was no other way he should have known about that scar, so far down her body it was, not visible by any stretch from the low-slung neck of her shirt. Even Jake seemed to see this discrepancy for what it was, judging by his knitted forehead.

“Scar,” murmured Rane, and she was looking at him now, head cocked a little, smirking and chewing her thumbnail. She considered letting it go without batting it about a bit, like a cat playing with a wounded bird, but she couldn’t quite resist. “Which scar do you mean, exactly? I’ve got them in spades.”

Roland touched his own chest, running a hand from just beneath his heart to the spot where his ribs ended, trying not to allow her too much satisfaction at his mistake. Had he denied it, she’d have called him out in front of them all, he hadn’t any doubt.

“Here, do ya. A deep wound. I thought I glanced it, though perhaps I was wrong.”

It was a rather weak cover-up and Roland knew it, but he let it stand because he wasn’t sure how else to explain it without delving into the details of their coming together that morning, and he wasn’t keen to suffer Eddie’s knowing expression when he learned of it, that much was for sure. Rane considered him a moment - Roland suspected from the way her eyes flitted merrily between his own that she might be trying to take a little stab at him because Rosalita Munoz had offered up her bed and body to him some hours before - then seemed to let it go, leaning back and running both her hands through her hair, letting her gaze skate away from his. In the flickering candlelight, she was remarkably beautiful, with the little knowing smirk playing about her lips and her brow furrowed.

“No, that’s from something else. I got a sword to the chest later on down the road.”

“Is that what got you the second time?” Jake asked her. Roland was happy to leave the subject of her scar behind, though Susannah was still watching him shrewdly, her dark eyes dancing a little knowingly beneath her brows. “Stabbed again?”

“Shot.” Rane touched the hollows of both shoulders, her right hip, and a spot just beneath her left breast in quick succession. “Here, here, here and here. The last one did me, it plugged me in my heart, I think. That’s how it felt, anyway. It was pretty quick after that. Next thing I knew, I was here, getting slapped around by that holy man in the other room.”

“The first time,” Jake asked her, looking curious and a touch diffident, “did you . . . well . . . do you remember dying?”

Rane nodded at once, chewing her lip. “Oh, yeah. Tunnel vision, then darkness. Everybody standing around me, upset. It was awful,” she added, a little lower, some of her pomposity evaporating. “My dad was the worst. On my chest, just . . . just crying.”

She trailed off, frowning at this memory. She was massaging the spot between her breasts, Roland noticed, as if in memory of this. He cleared his throat.

“We are ka-tet, and we sit together now an-tet,” he said, looking at his companions. “We share khef and counsel together this night.”

“Even her?” Susannah asked, looking surprised, gesturing at Rane.

Roland considered this a moment, then nodded. “For the nonce, yes. I’ve not given her full passage, I’d have all of you know,” he added, directing his eyes at Rane specifically. “We’ve much further to go before I do. But for now, yes, you’re amongst us well enough.”

Rane nodded, though that word - _ka-tet_ \- still meant nothing to her. She thought she might have an idea - a family, or a merry band like Robin Hood's, or some fucking thing like that - but she didn't know for sure, and felt certain Roland would tell her when the time came.

“Late though it is, is there nothing else?” Roland asked, looking around at them. “Nothing any of you would speak on while we’re together, before we part? If so, you must say.”

A moment of silence passed between them, in which the crickets could be heard, loud outside now in the dark. It was growing near midnight. Roland nodded, getting to his feet.

“There’s something else, Roland, but I’d speak on it with you alone, as dinh, and not here,” said Susannah, low.

Everyone looked at her. She had trained her gaze onto the tabletop, and her face betrayed nothing. Roland, who had spoken to Eddie Dean of what she likely wanted to talk to him about earlier that morning - her unprecedented pregnancy, one not of mankind - nodded quickly, pursing his lips.

“Very well. Can it wait until the dawn, when we might escape alone together for a moment or two and palaver, if that’s what thee wishes, lady?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Good.” Roland touched his fist to his forehead. “Sleep thee well. We’ll meet again tomorrow.”

Rane paused before striding to Callahan’s room, where her cot awaited her, grasping Roland’s wrist in one hand and meeting his eyes, her gaze dark and a little angry beneath her thick brows.

“Are you about to go sleep with her?” she asked, unable to help herself, her voice scarcely above a whisper. “Rosie? I heard what she said before she turned in. I’m just curious. Asking as a friend.”

Roland met her eyes, not pulling his wrist away from her just yet, his expression a little wry, her face just a few inches from his own. She was lovely in the dying candlelight, her eyes shadowed and her hair a little tousled with the toils of the day.

“I may indeed, it’s difficult to deny a good-looking woman when she asks for you to join her so brashly,” he said frankly. “Would that cross you, Rane, that I should lay with her?”

Rane did not so much release his hand as threw it away from her like a revolting thing, her face contorted in a moue of sickened offense. Roland, who had spoken only in jest - he had no intention of following Rosalita into her bedroom, none at all, had indeed already spotted a place on Callahan’s living room floor that he intended to spend the evening upon - was bewildered and a little unhappily startled by this.

“You’re going to. About ten hours after me.”

“I didn’t agree to give my nightlies exclusively betwixt thy thighs, sai Roth, lovely though they are,” said Roland before he could stop himself, a little sharply.

“Ohh, you . . . you absolute . . . _fuck_!” Rane spat the last word fiercely, her eyebrows contorted, her face a study in hurt offense. She wasn’t crying, but Roland thought she wasn’t far from it, judging by the set of her eyes, and despite his light jest he felt a little cramp of regret in his chest. He wished at once he hadn’t spoken to her so glibly. “Get after it, then, and I hope you have fun. You know what, I hope you have a _lot_ of fun, I really do, Roland. Fucking prick. _Fucking prick._ ”

This last Rane muttered to herself in a low, disgusted hiss as she broke away from him and strode towards her chambers. Roland watched her go, his own brow knit, frowning.

“You slept with her, didn’t you?”

Roland glanced aside. Eddie was standing at his elbow, watching Rane’s tall, lean form vanish into the Pere’s room, her long hair swinging behind her.

“What makes you say -?”

“Oh, Roland, for fuck’s sake, just give it a rest, why don’tcha.” Eddie was rolling his eyes. “That business with the scar on her chest, we all pretty much figured it out then, man. You’re quick with a shooting iron, but I hate to break it to you, when it comes to lying, you’re bombed right the fuck out.”

Roland sighed again, massaging the bridge of his nose. “I’ve made a mistake. Now she’s fashed of me, Eddie. I should have never. Did you hear what she called me?"

"Yeah. Caught the 'fucking prick' part, anyways. Ouch." Eddie looked interested by this summary confession. His hazel eyes were dancing. “Where? How? C’mon, let’s hear it. I want all the filthy details.”

Roland looked sidelong at him, and though he didn’t smile, there was a touch of humor in his voice. “On the mountain, before we reached Henchick. I’d not say more, for I trust she’s listening,” he added, very low, glancing at Eddie.

“Well, you might wanna rethink hanging out in Rosalita’s bed tonight, in that case. That girl seems like she might could run you through just for looking at her sideways. Boy, oh boy, I thought she was gonna field-dress me when I said that shit about her man, earlier. I won’t lie and say I wasn’t a little bit freaked out by it.”

“Eddie, sugar, come on and warm up this bed.” Susannah was eyeing him from the door of the Pere’s spare room. Eddie glanced at her.

“Coming, sweetness.” Looking at Roland, he said, “I guess that hearing you talk about laying her in the dirt on a mountain, you can talk all day about not thinking of her that way, but -”

“Go to bed, Eddie. Your mouth has a life all its own, and at the worst times.”

“I’m just saying, Roland, she -”

“Get thee to bed, I asked, I’ve heard enough on this today to last me a lifetime, or several.” Roland was frowning, vexed. “Go on. As if I was a teenaged boy. Honestly.”

“Okay. You’re the boss.” Eddie clapped him on the shoulder. “Just take it into consideration, Roland, ol’ buddy. Don’t warm up Rosie’s bed unless you’re ready for a fight, that girl’s jealous enough to -”

Roland fixed Eddie with a perilous glare. Eddie lifted both hands, shaking his head.

“Okay, okay. I’m going, I’m going.”

  
  



	14. Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A brief moment

_Tell me why everything turned around_

_Packing up_

_Shacking up_

_Is all you want to do_

_If I could, I'd give you my world_

_Open up, everything's waiting for you._

  * **Fleetwood Mac**



* * *

  
  


Roland Deschain would have gladly slept until noon the morning after their late night discussion an-tet - he was exhausted, not just from that but from the day-long trip to the Cave of Voices - but it turned out that a hard, cold wooden floor, even with a few paper-thin sheepskin blankets beneath him, didn’t exactly find him the most restful night. Though he wouldn’t have made love to her, especially not now - Rane’s harsh, hurt words followed him down that evening remorselessly enough - a few times Roland considered just taking Rosalita Munoz up on her request so he could kip out in a proper bed, perhaps make some excuse to avoid the relations she was surely hoping for. In the end, he thought better of it. Getting mixed up with one woman was tiresome enough without adding another into it.

When he banged out the screen door of the Pere’s rectory early that morning, clutching a cup of leftover, cold coffee from the night prior, he realized right away that he wasn’t alone. Though he couldn’t see anyone right away, he’d been taught the lessons of trail signs as well as the art of the gun when he was a young man, and he saw the tracks in the dewy grass leading away from the church’s dooryard almost at once. They led past Rosie’s little house, and on to the weakly moving stream that lay beyond. He followed them, curious in spite of himself. He suspected it was Susannah Dean, up early with a heavy heart - the disturbances in the lawn seemed likely enough hers to him - and strode off after them. Maybe they could get the long talk the two of them had coming done and dusted before the sun was too high in the sky. He didn’t look forward to it. She was in plenty of danger as it was without adding this new thing into it, and he had a suspicion she’d take it rough. And who wouldn’t? To know there was a devil growing in your belly . . . 

As he passed Rosalita’s little outhouse, gaining the river, he slowed, the smoke hung in his lips drooping a little as his keen eyes fell on the shore of the stream. He had been wrong. It wasn’t Suze; it was Rane, their newcomer, and she was completely naked.

Roland Deschain was a notoriously stoic man, especially when it came to women, but the sight of her standing on the riverbed, with the dress Eddie had bought for her hung over a tree branch nearby, her wet hair hanging to her mid-back and the muscles in her back well-defined, damp and shining and thrown into stark contrast, undid him more than a little. He backed up a step or two, considered high-tailing it - she hadn’t seen him, and with the noise the river made likely wouldn’t have heard him, either - but plain old low-down male curiosity held him fast, and he eyed her form as he stood beside Rosie’s outhouse, pulling the smoke from his lips and holding it between the first two fingers of his good left hand, watching helplessly. She was bending, drying her shins with what looked like a burlap sack from the Pere’s house (and how positively fetching _that_ sight was, with the pretty profile of her face turned down and her eyelashes fluttering and the long muscles of her shoulders flexing), then she straightened, snatching the dress from the nearby tree branch and pulling it over her head, wriggling her arms to do so. As she did, the hard-formed muscles of her lower back rippled a little beneath the sheaf of her damp hair - perhaps made solid and true by the swing of the sword she wielded, which sat on the riverbed still attached to her belt, pertly out of reach of the water - and Roland’s heart began to pound hard in spite of himself. Gods above, but she was a lovely sight. And the parts of him that remained hidden to most were stiffening a touch in his jeans at the sight of her lean torso and her small, firm breasts being adjusted into her shift, too. He glanced around, to see if anyone else had seen her bathing in the river - Eddie, perhaps, or Callahan, though he had an idea that the Pere wanted for other things than a woman’s nude form - and saw no one. He was enjoying this secret sight alone. This knowledge - that he was watching her by himself, as she meandered on the shore, gorgeous and unaware - was incredibly -

“ _Shit_ ,” he said abruptly, low. The cigarette in his hands had burned down to the quick, and he threw it away from him without smashing it out, displeased by the sharp burn of its cherry. He glanced back up at Rane, who had turned from the Pere’s house and squatted on the riverbed. She was staring off towards the East - towards Thunderclap, from whence the Wolves would come just twenty-two days hence now. He started for her, squaring his shoulders (and adjusting his jeans a little). She hadn't noticed him, at least from what he saw, and it pleased him well enough.

“Lady, you’re up with the sun,” he remarked as he came upon her.

Rane hadn't seen him as he had watched her while she was undressed, but she had heard his advent, had known him from the slow kick of his boot heels and the steady rate of his breath, and when he squatted on his hunkers by her side she wasn't surprised. She glanced over at him, her damp hair thrown over one shoulder and her eyes bright on his, smiling a little. "I guess I'm not the only one."

"I slept poor." Roland picked up a blade of grass and strung it between his teeth absently, squinting off towards the horizon. In that moment he was the living, breathing picture of Clint Eastwood out of some Sergio Leone spaghetti Western - _Fistful of Dollars_ sprang to mind - though had Rane told him this she was sure he'd have no idea what she meant. "The Pere's floor is hard, do ya. Cold, too."

"Well, I thought you'd be squaring up someplace a little bit warmer, from the sound of it."

Roland shook his head. "No."

"Huh." Rane shifted a little on the dirt, curling her legs beneath her Indian-style and placing her hands in her lap. She gestured East, where the darkness loomed like a living nightmare. "That direction weighs on me. Weighs on my heart, if you wanna get poetic about it. Feels heavy as hell. Sometimes I catch myself just staring off towards it."

"Aye. Lady, that direction is our path, once this place is caught up and we've done our duty. Into that deep dark and beyond."

"Really?" Rane hesitated, then added, "Me, too?"

"If you survive." Roland's tone was dry and businesslike. "And if you become part of our tet. Yes. Further on still, past that darkness and on and on, do ya."

"Where is it you're going?" Rane asked him, glancing sidelong at him. This had been a question she'd wanted to ask Roland for some time now. Though he'd never spoken of it, she sensed that he had some sort of end-game in mind. And now, without fanfare, he told her.

"The Dark Tower."

"The _what_ tower, now?"

"The very hub of all existence. Of everything that is, and was, and could be." Roland's expression was one of almost lustful affection. Rane was reminded strongly of a junkie speaking on his fix. Whatever the man thought this Dark Tower was, he was as addicted to it as Eddie Dean had been to heroin, according to his telling. "I seek the Tower to climb to the top, and see what's there to see."

"Why?"

Roland shrugged, chewing the blade of grass pensively. His face was still lax with longing. He didn't seem terribly bothered with the why.

"You ever heard of Icarus, Roland?" Rane asked him bluntly.

Roland shook his head, but as always he looked interested. "Is it a story?"

"Yeah, it is. It's about a guy who makes wings and finds out how to fly. But he gets too close to the sun and his wings melt, and then he falls all the way back to the ground and dies." Rane chewed her thumbnail, her long legs curled beneath her in the dress Eddie had bought from Took's store, her eyes sharp and bright beneath her dark brows. "You understand?"

"Yes, but I shan't have such a tale hindering me on this trail, lady. Not now, so late in the game." Roland shrugged, meeting her hazel eyes with his blue ones and tossing the blade of grass away from his lips. "I am what I am. I cannot stop my pursuit. Not for all the cautionary tales in the world. Though I like that one," he added, "and I'd hear it full, sometime."

"Susannah is pregnant," Rane said abruptly.

Roland looked at her, startled a little. Her eyes were East again, on the darkness that was Thunderclap, where the Wolves roamed, whatever they were. Perhaps preparing for their raid to snatch up the Calla's children even as they spoke. He scoffed, shaking his head.

"That thee's trig I know, with your bloodline what it is, but how did you know that?" he asked her frankly. "Did Eddie tell you he suspected it? Did Susannah?"

Rane shook her head. "Felt it moving in her belly when we danced the other night. Nothing supernatural about it."

Roland was disturbed deeply by this. "Felt it?"

Rane nodded, biting her lip. "But it didn't feel right, Roland. Felt like a . . ." She hesitated, smirking a little, as if grimly amused by her own superstition. "You wanna know something? When I felt it, I thought at first maybe it was just her having some sort of, y'know, indigestion or something. We were all squished up against one another. I bet you saw us, being silly."

Roland nodded. He'd seen them, both drunk as lords, Rane clutching Suze to her chest and waltzing amidst laughter that night, Eddie and Jake and Oy cavorting about nearby.

"But Roland, even then, while I was just writing it off as nothing, I thought of a jackal. Do you know jackals?"

Roland nodded. "Desert dogs. Brush wolves, as they were called in my boyhood."

"Callahan could probably tell you this, but in the Bible, they say a jackal was what gave birth to the Antichrist. The opposite to the guy who was supposed to save us all." Rane shook her head. "When I felt that thing move in her belly, man, I swear to God, my heart just about dropped all the way out of me. It felt _evil_. Seemed silly at the time, and I'm only half-Elf, but that half knows, man, it always, _always_ knows. I tried to keep up with that indigestion shit, but it was weak from the start."

She touched her lips and her forehead in quick succession then spoke a phrase Roland didn't know: " _Mal'áme etelehta ulcullo_."

"What does that mean?"

"Nothing. Just superstition." Rane glanced sidelong at him. "Will you talk to her about it?"

Roland nodded at once. "She knows. Of course she does. So does Eddie."

"I'd be surprised if either of them didn't."

"But as far as what her get will be . . ." Roland shook his head, his brows knitted. "When we drew Jake, as he told you . . . well, do you remember him speaking of the house demon?"

Rane nodded.

"That thing had her, Rane. It . . . it _mated_ her, if you understand. Like she was a bred mare, it did. And when it did, I believe it gat her a brood."

This word - _brood_ \- filled Rane with an almost superstitious terror. Aloud, she asked, "Does the Pere know?"

"No, and when he does, I suspect he'll bring more trouble than wisdom," Roland replied, low, his eyes dark. "I have more experience than I'd like to on these sorts of religious men, and they can't see the trees for the forest, as Susannah says, you ken."

Rane nodded, not bothering to correct him on this last. "I sure as fuck do ken that, sir."

"You stare in that direction like someone thinking long thoughts."

"Well, my thoughts aren't as long as my feelings are." Rane shook her head. The reflection of the deepening blackness of Thunderclap glinted in her eyes. "It's like my mind is drawn to it. I feel it like an itch at the back of my brain. I can't explain it any better than that. Did you see me naked?"

This last was added almost offhandedly, and though Roland had used the very same technique on her, still he was surprised into an honest answer.

“Yes. I did. Say sorry.”

"You say sorry?" She didn't look particularly embarrassed by this news, though she did look a little amused. "Even after yesterday?"

"I didn't see you without clothes on yesterday. Touched you, but didn't see. I cry your pardon. When I came outside, you were pulling on your shift and I couldn't take my eyes away quick enough."

Rane's eyes were dancing. “Did you like what you saw or something?”

Roland nodded without hesitation, quite unabashed.

“I thought you’d find something in Rosie’s bed last night, after all your fast talk.”

“I stayed away from her because you were on my mind.”

“Uh-oh. Am I in trouble?”

“Nay, but I’d like to touch you again, if I can speak plain." Roland was watching her closely. "My body wants for you."

"Your body?" Rane was chewing her lip, looking at him assessingly. "And what about your heart?"

Roland shrugged, meeting her gaze. "Both. I'm accursed of each."

Rane laughed, low. "Accursed, huh. Shakespeare over here with the romance, about to talk the knickers off somebody."

"You looked fair well coming out of this river, though I’d have liked my hands on you as you were wet like that. Sent me near mad.”

Rane laughed, low. “That’s dude talk, sir.”

“Perhaps.” Roland was still watching her, chewing his lip, smiling a little. "True, though. I told you. I can’t think about much else. Hardly even the task at hand. You've filled my mind."

This pronouncement hung between them pregnantly. Rane met Roland's gaze, her mouth downturned, undone by this brash confession.

"You told me not twelve hours ago I should put this away, because we have other business," she said at last. Her heart was beating hard. "You've changed your mind? Or what?"

"This?" Roland's eyebrows were high.

"Yeah, this." Rane's tone was blunt enough. She gestured. "This. You and me. I know I just met you, but . . . _this_."

He looked at her for a long moment, seeming to struggle with himself, then leaned toward her and kissed her abruptly, pressing his mouth on hers gently. Rane was happy to accept it. She tasted like riverwater still, and it was fetching, indeed.

“I swear to God I don’t know you from Adam, but I think I almost . . .” Rane trailed off against his mouth. He ran his hand through her hair, shaking his head.

"You don't," he said softly, moving closer to her, "but you might, if you let me have you on this riverbed. Will you? I want you so badly I can hardly breathe."

She did, and they lay together in the sand, man and woman. And the way he held her after, close to his still-racing heart, his lips on her temple, was certainly not the usual way of the one and done, and he wondered, as he held her warm, firm torso against his, what exactly he was getting himself into.


	15. On The Way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake, Roland, Eddie and Rane pass the time on the way to meet the Calla's bravest

_Been watching cowboy films on gloomy afternoons_

_Tinting the solitude_

_Put on your dancing shoes and show me what to do_

_I know you've got the moves_

_All my own stunts, high noon has changed its tune_

_Linking arms, sinking hearts_

_And sorrow slow dances around the edges of her eyes_

_Taking no chances, the last one out to win a prize._

  * **Arctic Monkeys**



* * *

“No.”

“ _Yes_.”

“No. Absolutely _fucking_ not. Sorry, Pere,” Rane added, glancing at him. Callahan waved this off.

“Yes you _will_ , and I’ll not hear another word on it. You’ll do it, or you can ride on. _Don’t_ balk any further on the matter, for your life and mine,” Roland added imperiously as Rane opened her mouth, her eyes round and outraged. “I’ve not the patience, I slept ill and we’ve a long day ahead and tribulations aplenty as it already is.”

Rane sat now at the breakfast table with Susannah, Roland, Eddie, Jake and Callahan, a spread of potatoes and sausage and coffee before them. She balled up her napkin and threw it onto her plate irritably, scowling in the lovely morning light and looking positively sulky.

“Bullshit,” she muttered.

“Well, is it, though?” said Jake fairly, shrugging. “They could stand to learn, Rane. It might help us later.”

Rane slackened a little bit at his voice, as usual - she was growing a soft spot about a mile wide for the kid - then shrugged herself. “Jake, it isn’t that I don’t want them to learn, it’s the principle of the thing. And anyways, even if I was super duper cool with it, which I’m not, there’s no steel in this town besides the kind these people use to bleed out their sheep, I'd wager, and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m not putting this one on my belt into some stranger’s hands.”

Roland had asked her to teach the Calla’s willing members how to wield a sword, something Rane had a bit of a hangup about. She’d learned the art of her blade hard and long, beneath not just her father, a formidable swordsman himself, but many others. The practice of the thing wasn’t a twenty-odd-day affair, for starters; it had taken her much of her adult life to become as affluent as she was now, and it was perhaps the one skill she held with the most fierce pride. To be asked to show a bunch of backwoods yokels how to swing a piece of steel the way she and her forebears did was almost blasphemous, and though she was sure - well, _almost_ sure - that Roland didn’t know this, still it vexed her.

“Asking an Elf to show you how to play with a sword is about the rudest thing you could do,” she remarked, low. “Aside from straight-up slugging one in the kisser.”

“Well, you’re only half-Elf, right?” Suze said, smirking over her coffee. "So shouldn't you only be halfway offended like this?"

Rane scoffed. “Still. if my dad knew I was even _thinking_ about -"

“Oh, my _God_. Would you _listen_ to this girl?” Eddie looked grimly amused. “Your dad ain't here, Rane, so what’s the harm? Honestly, the way you talk you’d think somebody had asked you to cut your damn heart out and serve it up to them for supper.”

“Aye,” Roland agreed, low, eyeing her over his coffee. “Far too finicky.”

“Okay, well, say I _do_ show them, Roland - what are they supposed to use, then?” said Rane, slamming her mug down and glaring at him. “Sticks? Because I’ll die in bits and pieces in the dirt before I hand this weapon over to some stranger, it’s worth more than my life, it isn’t some ceremonial piece of - !”

“Relax.” Roland, who knew a thing or two about rare weapons and the weight they carried, lifted his hands, smirking. “ _Relax_ , woman, I’d not ask that of you when there are surely other ways. Rosie?”

Rosalita glanced at him from where she stood next to the sink. She’d been silent and a little irritable that morning, casting rather dark looks at Roland; she felt scorned, Rane was certain, because he had chosen not to join her in her bed last night. “Yes?”

“Do the Calla folken bear spears? Since they seem disinclined to true swords, from what I've seen.”

Rane scoffed at once, her face contorting. “You can’t compare _spears_ to -!”

“ _Hush thy mouth,_ Rane Roth of the Eldar, before you say something that truly vexes me,” Roland said sharply, casting a perilous and slightly high-browed look her way. "Trig though it might be, it moves far too much this morning.”

Rane fell silent at once, flushing a little. Eddie laughed.

“Only you, Roland, can insult somebody and compliment them in the same breath.”

Roland ignored this. “Rosie? What say you?”

“Aye, gunslinger, they’ve spears. Though whether they can use them . . .” She shrugged noncommittally. “Perhaps some of the younger men. Most are for show.”

“Any other weapons, wielded as such? Long and sharp, you ken? For I know they haven’t enough guns and bolts won’t work.”

“Glaives,” said Rosie at once, nodding. Rane perked at this, interested. “Again, mostly for show, do ya, but that they could be taught I haven’t doubt, gunslinger, if the lady-sai’ll show ‘em.”

“Does thee know glaives?” Roland asked Rane, meeting her eyes.

“How big are they, Rosie?” Rane asked, glancing at her. “At the business end?”

Rosie considered this, then held her hands about two feet apart. “So. Maybe less, from the ones I’ve seen. They’re passed along in families, you ken, from father to son. Most of’em have at least one in their house, so they do, unless they’re terrible skint or from away, like the Pere here. Me own brother had one, before he passed, though it only collected dust on’eir mantle for donkey years and grew dull.”

Rane nodded her approval. “Okay. That’ll work. I’m not teaching them swordplay,” she added, giving Roland an imperious look, “but I’ll show them the right way to use a weapon like that, if they’re made well enough and willing to learn. Does that make you happy?”

“Not particularly,” said Roland dryly, and finished off his coffee. “It satisfies me, though, which you seem well adapted to.”

Jake looked bewildered by this, but both Eddie and Callahan smirked at it. Rane scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Boys, I gotta be honest, I don’t feel too awfully well,” said Susannah. She was rubbing her stomach, staring down at a mostly untouched plate and ignoring Roland’s jest. “You might wanna write me off for this morning, at least for a couple-few hours. I kinda wanna take me a little lay-down.”

“Do ya,” said Roland, but he was watching her with some concern. So, too, was Eddie.

“You want for some company in bed, babydoll?” her husband asked her.

“Nah, go on with them. It’ll pass. Probably goddamned hormones. Lord knows I got ‘em in spades lately.” Suze was hopping lithely off her chair. “Come and shake me awake if I ain’t up before a couple hours pass, sugarbunch.”

Roland and Eddie exchanged a look as she vanished into the Pere’s spare bedroom, both with eyebrows knitted. Rane pushed her own plate away. The thought of whatever that thing was growing in Susannah’s belly was enough to rob anybody of their appetite.

“Can you look after her?” Roland asked, looking at Callahan, his voice dropping. “While I speak to the ones who’ll fight beside us?”

Callahan shook his head regretfully. “Gunslinger, I’d be glad of it any other time, but today Rosie and I head into town to give out Communion.”

Roland sighed, rubbing his temple. “Very well. I suppose we’ll have to leave her behind, then.”

“I’ll stay,” said Eddie at once.

“No. I need you. All three of you. All four, like as not,” he added, glancing at Oy, who was gnawing on a sausage at Jake’s feet. “She’ll be alright.”

“I dunno, man. I don’t really want to leave her all by herself.” Eddie was chewing his lip, his dark eyes on the hallway where his wife had disappeared. “Not alone.”

“Nevertheless, we must.”

“We let this go for too long,” said Eddie, meeting his dinh’s gaze. “ _Way_ too long.”

“Should have said something weeks back,” Jake agreed, very low.

“Weeks,” Oy murmured around his sausage.

“I know,” Roland muttered. He was rubbing his chin, pensive. “I was foolish. A bad mistake indeed. But it’s done now, for better or worse.” He looked at Rane. “You’ll help us to show these people how to fight, yes?”

“Yeah, I’ll do my damndest. Can’t promise any of them will take to it.” Rane sounded a little haughty. “All I can do is point them towards the water. Can’t make ‘em drink.”

“You seem spry as a cricket this morning, Roland,” Eddie remarked, eyeballing him. “Thought you said you slept like shit on the floor.”

“Hmm. Perhaps the air.” Indeed, Roland felt absolutely wonderful. Not an ache or pain in him, not even his hip, despite the riding he’d done the day before, both horseback and otherwise. He’d been surprised, indeed, as he was lying over Rane on the riverbed that morning, thrusting into her with the vivacity and pace of a much younger man, that he didn’t hurt anywhere in the very least even putting his rustier parts into such vigorous work. Whatever magic she was throwing off, he hoped it held. “This place feels fresh, somehow.”

“Fresh, indeed.” Callahan was getting to his feet, stretching richly. “Rosie, my lady, shall we hop to it? There’s grass growing beneath my feet, I think.”

  
  


ROLAND, Eddie, Jake and Rane were preparing their ponies for the ride into town - Roland claimed he’d spoken to several of the Calla’s braver constituents about taking up arms at their sides, and they’d agreed to gather and speak on it - when Andy showed up for the first time. Rane Roth wasn’t an easily rattled woman - she’d seen creatures she could scarcely describe in her past iterations, many frightening, some lethal - but a robot was not one of them. When he clanked up to them, having arrived on the Pere’s front lawn with hideous silence, she loosed a short but fully fledged scream behind both hands, spooking her mount into a little half-rear as she tightened its bridle. Eddie, Jake and Roland all jumped at the sound, eyes going wide. Even Oy gave a little bark of surprise, ears flattening.

“Fuckin’ _shit_!” Eddie said loudly, clutching his face. “Man Jesus and Johnny Cochran and all the fuckin' _saints_ , Rane -!"

“Lady-sai, I cry your pardon, so I do,” the metal thing said, bowing a little before Rane. It spoke monotonously, and its head was shaped like a big cylinder. Tall, too, some seven or eight feet. If R2D2 was any relation, this was his cousin from the NBA. “I didn’t mean to sneak up.”

“What the FUCK _IS_ THAT?” Rane cried, her voice still high and keening. She was backed against her still-snorting pony, her eyes wide.

“Rane, calm yourself.” Roland was clutching his thin chest, eyes falling shut, shaking his head. “Don't thee cry out like that again or I'll drop down dead or shoot you, one or the other -"

“Seriously.” Jake was pale, too. “It’s just Andy, Rane. He won’t hurt you or anything. Man, that scared the pants off of me, when you yelled like that.”

Andy’s guts clanked - a strangely sepulchral sound - then he cocked his weird head, eyes flashing blue at Rane, who stood grasping her throat with one hand and clutching her sword’s hilt with the other, gaping at him, wide-eyed. “Lady-sai, what’s your name? As the young soh says, I am Andy, messenger robot. Many other functions.”

Rane, panting a little: “Rane is my name. Rane.”

“Rane -?”

“Roth.”

“Sai Roth. My readings tell me your heart is beating far too fast, nearly one hundred and fifty-six beats per minute, from what I can hear. Take into consideration that it isn’t healthy to allow this to continue. Perhaps more exercise, in your spare time?”

Despite his surprise, Jake burst out laughing helplessly at this weird pronouncement. Eddie did, too. Rane placed the hand that was hovering over her mouth against her chest protectively now. Christ almighty, this weird-looking metal monstrosity was standing here talking about ways she could improve her cardiovascular health? Would wonders never cease?

“Andy? Is that your name?” Her voice was a little harsh. Now that her initial shock was wearing off, it was quickly being replaced by irritation that bordered on resent.

“Yes, sai.”

“Well, Andy,” said Rane coolly, speaking slow and droll, “the reason why my heart is beating so fast is because you just walked up and scared the living, breathing Christ outta me, not because I haven’t been getting enough exercise, and I’ll thank you very much not to do it again. Also,” she added, “it’s weird saying to a complete-ass stranger that you can hear their heart beating. Doesn’t that seem weird to you? Sorta creepy, even? Like some horror movie type shit? Sorta Michael Meyers vibe?”

Now that they’d gotten past their initial startlement at hearing her scream, Eddie, Roland and Jake were laughing openly at this interaction. Even Oy looked amused.

“Oh man.” Eddie was wiping a tear from his eye. “Give it to him, girl. I’d have paid good cash for this shit.”

“I apologize, sai Roth. _Is_ it rude?” Andy’s voice was monotone, but Rane was damned if she didn’t detect a little nuance of bullshittery in it nonetheless. He was being a smartass, that was what she thought. This was a far cry from C-3P0, indeed. "Perchance I didn’t know.”

“No, bro, it isn't rude, I believe the term I used was 'creepy.'” Roland, Eddie and Jake were still laughing, despite Rane’s cold tone of voice and grim frown. There was little she hated worse than being surprised that way. “Don’t you come up cold on me that way again unless you want that goofy-looking head of yours laying in the dirt beside you, and you can tell me _that’s_ rude all goddamned fucking day long -”

“ _Rane!_ ” This was Callahan, who was hitching a horse to his wagon with Rosie some ways off, his face weary. “Girl, you vex me. Not so near the church, lest He strike you down where you stand.”

Rane ignored him, instead aiming a finger at Andy. “Next time, you can tell me how hard my heart is beating and how I need more exercise while I’m standing over three or four pieces of you in the dirt. You hear that loud and clear, brother, or should I lay it down once more?”

“Yes, sai, I hear you,” said Andy, biddable enough. Still, Rane thought she heard that same little touch of sass. Seemed impossible, for a robot to be sassy, yet there it was. "Your heart is still beating fast, though, do ya, so I can -"

“I know it is. That’s because now I’m thinking about dropping a motherfucker, and that tends to get my blood up.” Rane was yanking her pony’s harness tighter, scowling. “Is there anything else I can help you with? You wanna tell me how my blood pressure looks next?”

“A little high, lady.”

“Wait. _Wait, waaaaaait_.” Roland was still laughing as Rane took a step toward Andy, her face contracted with anger. He was snatching at her arm. “Stop it, lady-sai, and leave him be. He means no harm in it. Do you, Andy?”

“Not a bit.” Andy’s eyes flashed at Rane, and though his voice still held the same flat tone, Rane would have bet her life and all the rest of theirs on the fact that he was being an asshole on purpose. “Would’ee like to hear your horoscope, lady? For fair though you are, it never harms to be prepared for thy fortune.”

Rane, who was pulling herself into the pony’s saddle, met his weird blue eyes with her own darker ones. “Being fair doesn’t have a whole lot to do with fortune, Andy,” she said coarsely. She felt unnerved by him, not just because he’d snuck up on her that way, either, and her voice reflected it. “But sure, since you’re clearly such a sage fucking crackerjack, why don’t ya tell it back to me.”

Andy hesitated before he did. Rane sensed - clearly - his contempt for her hanging in the air, and never mind if he was a robot or a human or the queen of fucking England, it was there, and palpable. Aloud, as cheery as ever, he said, “You’ll meet a dangerous man, lady, who’ll fall in love. And you’ll find a strange place, and a strange fate, and grow worrisome for what the future holds. You’ll fight a battle, both inside your heart and in the field, do ya.”

“Oh, man, slap butter on my ass and call me a biscuit, I’ve been enlightened,” said Rane irritably. Eddie burst out laughing again.

“Good God, woman.”

“Get this walking Roomba out of my road and let’s get going,” Rane said coolly. She eyed Andy with clear dislike as the four of them rode past him, her gaze hampering none of her distaste. “You march on, kiddo, and don’t cross paths with me again like you did just now, if you want to keep sniffing the air.”

“I do not sniff the air, lady-sai,” said Andy, and now the gleeful sass in his voice was unmistakable. “But I shall do my very best. For those of the Eldar are said ever to avoid conflict, where they can, though it seems this one does not.”

Rane aimed a finger at him, heeling her pony to a stop, almost unable to believe that this thing had just brashly insulted her dad's people. “You wanna say that one more time, metal man?”

“Which part, I beg?” said Andy, a little solicitously.

Roland, Eddie and Jake were a little ways ahead, and stopped now, looking back at her. Rane was watching Andy, her face very still and her eyes sharp beneath her brows. It was a predatory look, and a dangerous one, at that.

“You better watch that way you’re talking, kid, I’m starting to feel a little frisky about you.”

“Rane.” Roland sounded a little exasperated now. He wasn’t laughing anymore. “Come on. Leave it. Your temper grates me a little, so early in the day.”

“Sai Roth,” said Andy, sounding positively unctuous now. “Have I said something to upset you?”

“You’ve said something to make me wanna break my foot off in your ass, Andy, that’s correct.”

“Nearly one hundred and thirty-six beats per -”

“Stop listening to my _heart_ , Andy, you fucking _weird asshole_ \- !”

Rane started to get off her mount. Her heart really _was_ hammering now, not from surprise but from simple fury. Eddie snatched her arm.

“Quit it. Leave it alone.” He gestured with his head, turning his horse. “That thing, he’s been a smartass fuckhead ever since we got here. Just forget about him. He’s trying to goad you. Because he’s bored, I think.”

“Is that what you’re trying to do? Goad me?” Rane said loudly, glaring at Andy over Eddie’s arm, her eyes sharp and cool beneath her thick brows.

“Never in life, sai,” said Andy dutifully.

“Rane.” Roland’s voice was stern, and he slapped her mount gently, causing it to trot on with a little snort. “Come on, now. Leave it, as Eddie said.”

  
  


RANE was grim and scowling in her saddle by the time they arrived at Eisenhart’s ranch, where Roland had asked the rest of them to meet. Jake eventually slapped her shoulder, grinning.

“What’s got you looking all pissed?”

“That’s a big word for a kid not out of his trainers,” Rane remarked.

“I’ll train your ass in a couple of things if you’ll let me,” said Jake, undaunted.

Rane laughed, unable not to, and cast him a fond look. “Dude, I sure do like the fuck out of you, and I’m not ashamed to say.”

“Shucks.” Jake was grinning.

"I just don't like that Andy thing, is all. He crept up on me like it was nothing. Sneaky bastard. Something about him seems off to me."

"I don't really like him, either. But I don't think he means any harm. He's just . . . weird." Jake looked ahead, where Eddie and Roland were riding side by side, speaking in low voices, then added, “Do you and Roland like each other? It feels like you do.”

“ _Feels_ like I do?” Rane looked at him curiously. “Now that’s a word I’d like to follow. How do you mean, kiddo?”

Jake shrugged. “Just that.”

“You can just tell. Is that what you mean?”

"Sort of. Roland calls it the Touch."

Rane considered this a moment, looking at him appraisingly - she thought what he actually meant was plain old telepathy of a sort, rather than the low-slung, bone-deep instinct that she enjoyed herself - but she reminded herself to keep an eye on him. The idea was a little fascinating.

"What makes you think I like Roland?" she asked him instead, smirking a little. "Or that he likes me, for a matter of fact?"

“When you guys are near each other . . .” Jake patted his chest, looking at Roland’s lean form up ahead. “His heart beats harder. And he looks at you a lot, when you’re not paying attention. And thinks about you. He never gets like that. _Ever_. And . . well . . .” He glanced at her apologetically. “Yours does too, sometimes, when you think about him. Please don’t be mad at me, after what Andy said. I can’t help it, Rane. It just comes to me.”

Rane could have leaned over and kissed his sunburnt forehead, so clearly genuine was this apology. “How do you know how hard his heart is beating? Or mine?”

“Because _he_ knows. Because he can feel it. Sometimes he does this.” Jake reached up and massaged the center of his chest, a gesture Rane had seen Roland perform several times. “But then he says it’s his stomach.” He laughed, low, and put on a low, rolling timbre that was Roland to the life. “I’ve taken too quickly to the game in the place, so I did, and it settled not with me.”

Rane laughed, a little fascinated. “Man, that's wild."

What she was wondering now, a little uncomfortably, was whether this kid could snatch from either of their minds the memory of their twice having sex, in all honesty - the idea made her feel a little sullied - but if he knew about this, he either didn’t say or wouldn’t out of courtesy.

Jake was looking at her shrewdly, and Rane realized with a smirk he was picking up on her discomfiture. The look on his face was a little pained.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."

Rane reached over and ruffled his hair. “You have nothing to apologize for.” She hesitated, then added, “you still wanna know the answer?"

Jake nodded, looking curious. "I've just never seen him that way. Seems weird for him."

Rane didn’t mind being honest with him, though if it had been Suze or Eddie she probably would have lied. The kid was pure as the driven snow, that much she could tell.

"I'm pretty sure I do, a little bit. Susannah told me the other day I should put it away because he has what she calls glammer. I'm still not sure what that word means," she added, glancing at him a little furtively.

Jake cocked his head, looking pensive. There was something a little sad about the set of his shoulders, as if taken in some dark and portentous memory. Rane was reminded abruptly of how Jake and Roland had both skated over the details of Jake's first time showing up in Midworld - almost as if they each wanted to hurry past the retelling of it - and wondered if that might be something to do with it. Instinct - her own version of the Touch - told her it probably was.

"Almost like he can . . . I dunno, influence people to do things without trying too hard. Because of how he is. People just want to please him. That isn't quite right," Jake added, and shrugged. "Close enough, though."

"Well, then maybe I need to keep my eyeballs to myself."

Jake shrugged. Eddie was glancing back at them from up ahead.

“Next stop, Eisenhart's ranch,” he cried merrily. “We ready to show some fools how to sling a weapon, or what?”

“We’re ready to start a lesson in what not to do in a swordfight, but I’m present,” said Rane dryly, getting off her pony. “Come on, then.”


	16. Margaret Eisenhart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Calla ladies learn some new tricks

_Shotgun blasts are heard_

_When I rip and kill, at will_

_The man of the hour, tower of power, I'll devour_

_I'm gonna tie you up and let you understand_

_That I'm not your average man_

_When I gotta jammy in my hand._

  * **LL Cool J**



* * *

  
  


From the way Roland had talked about it, Rane had expected a half-dozen or less to be waiting for them at Eisenhart’s Rocking B - which was expansive indeed and stocked well with healthy-looking cattle - but to her unpleasant surprise there were better than a dozen, closer to a score if you factored in the several ranch hands leaning on the yonder fence. One of this crowd was the teenaged Benny Slightman the Younger, Jake’s buddy. The other ones Rane recognized from the Calla’s welcome gala - Margaret Eisenhart, her husband Vaughn, Tian and Zalia Jaffords and Ben Slightman the Elder. The lot of them were milling around in front of the little ranch house, eyeing Roland’s little gang with avid interest as they drew near, tying their ponies to the hitching post. Rane hesitated, casting Roland a startled look.

“Roland, there are like fifteen _people_ here!” she hissed, dismayed.

“And that you can count pleases me.”

“Am I supposed to teach _all_ of them? You made it sound like there were five or six, tops! I didn’t want to put on a damn _symposium_!”

Eddie, Jake and Oy were striding past where the two of them stood. Roland paused before walking on after them, cornering her a little against the post. He wore an oilskin Stetson this morning - Rane was fairly sure Telford had given it to him - and presently he palmed it back on his neck, exposing his whole face to her. His voice was low and a little impatient when he spoke.

“Do you think I’d have you teach such things to a flock of horseshit-stinking gauchos and straphangers, like those stood by yonder livestock? Or a foreman’s boy not yet old enough to’ve seen his first jilly? Of _course_ I don’t expect you to teach all of them.” He spoke quickly and dismissively, and presently placed one hand on the post, leaning near to her with his back facing their companions and crossing his boots in a deceptively relaxed posture, like some cowpoke passing the time of day. “Now listen to me quick, before we follow my tet and speak to these good people.”

Behind them, Eddie and Jake were calling their greetings to the farmers and ranchers awaiting them, and Oy could be heard barking his own hello. It was clear enough they were drawing away from Rane and Roland so they could hold their little palaver, and Rane was struck by the link between them once more, how formidably in tune they were with each other. Not a word needed spoken between them to know just what their dinh wanted.

“I don’t want you to teach all of them, I don’t even want you to teach _most_ of them. I want you to gauge their skill, and choose one or two. Three, if you feel one more shows ability.”

“I’d kind of like Suze and Jake, if I get to pick,” Rane said at once.

Roland shook his head. “No, I'll need them both elsewhere. We need to find aid amongst these folken first. The five of us are proven already, but five of us won't be enough.”

“Do you have a plan?” Rane asked him frankly. The significance of that word - _elsewhere_ \- had not been lost on her. “About what to do? Already?”

Roland leaned back, eyeing her, then took one finger and tweaked her chin as he shoved his hat back onto his head fully, smirking and making sure he’d given enough space between them for everyone who was watching to get a full eyeful of this. It was, Rane realized, not necessarily a _truly_ flirtatious gesture but one of some calculation. He was still playing into that whole this-lady-is-my-strumpet trope, but this time his putting on airs didn’t vex her so much. She understood that it was for the benefit of the men they were about to speak to, who seemed comforted somehow to witness a woman laboring beneath her man’s chaperone.

“We’re well met,” Roland said, making his way towards them. “How does’ee this day?”

“Do fine, gunslinger, say, true, say thankya big-big,” said Eisenhart, tapping his throat thrice and gesturing at Eddie. “Your ka-mates say you’ve had your coffee this morn’, but Margaret’s got a fresh’un indoors if you’d take of it.”

“Nay, nay, we’d focus on our business.”

“Well whatever business brings thee, sai, I hope we’ve gathered enough as you’ve asked,” Margaret said, watching him with a combination of something like shyness and trepidation. “Sarey’d have been here too but she’s been called off to help with the Old Feller’s mad ol’ Communion with Rosie, do ya ken.” She said this last a little derisively.

“Sai Eisenhart, sai Slightman, I’d ask of you something, and it may seem to thee a bit coarse,” Roland said, meeting the eyes of the men he’d addressed from beneath his hat. “Sai Jaffords, I’d ask it of you too, were it not such a trek from here to your homestead.”

“Do ya.” Tian looked intrigued.

“Rosie tells me you’ve weapons something like sai Roth’s, passed along from kin to kin, though with shorter a blade and longer a haft, do ya.”

A very pregnant silence fell in which everyone - even the ranch hands who were still hovering curiously around the fence, clearly eavesdropping - looked at Rane. Understanding what was being asked of her, she pulled the sword from the scabbard that hung on her belt and let them see it. No flashy flips and twirls this time; just yanked it out and let it hang by her side, allowing them all an eyeful. There’d be plenty of time for exhibition in short order, she suspected. Benny gasped a little, looking positively delighted.

“Glaives,” said Slightman, nodding at once. “We’re given ‘em, sometimes. But gunslinger, they’re dear, and kept as tokens, not weapons. Heirlooms, do ya, and maintained badly, like as not.”

“Aye, so I’m told. But we may need to dust them off and let them drink some blood, before this is over.”

“Oh, sai Deschain,” said Zalia, shaking her head a little. “I know a few folken who’d balk dreadful at an ask such as that. Men hold on _tight_ to them, so they do.”

“Which is very well, because we’ll only need two, or maybe three,” said Roland steadily. Jake and Eddie had both leaned against the far wall of the porch and were watching this placidly enough. Like Rane, they seemed happy to let Roland do most of the initial bantering. “Rane’ll choose which has nose enough to wield one, and then we’ll clean and sharpen and bolster -”

“ _Rane_?” Eisenhart was looking at Roland with eyebrows high. “I thought’ee chose us to show us how to shoot, sai?”

“And thought so still, even as this lady showed you her blade?" Roland asked him, a trifle drolly. Rane sheathed her sword, noticing Benny’s slightly gape-mouthed grin still lingering with it as she did.

Eisenhart puffed a little. “I’d not have a go at my da's piece with -”

“Oh, peace, you’ve not touched the thing in donkey’s years,” said Margaret, sounding a little sharp. To Roland, she said, “I’d have a go.”

“And I,” Zalia added quickly. “Please you, Tian,” she added, dropping her voice a bit and casting her husband a demure glance.

Tian was eyeing Rane speculatively. Although he’d affected fascination with her weapon the other night, he looked a trifle suspicious of it now that his wife was to be placed into its reach.

“Dangerous, seems to be,” he remarked.

Rane shrugged and nodded, not bothering to dress this up. They’d see soon enough, in any case.

“How’ll’ee show us, sai?” Margaret asked, looking at Rane curiously. “Should we fetch ‘em now?”

“My grandpere's glaive’d not stand against true steel like that,” Slightman added, nodding to her sword. “Like as not crack in two or three pieces, which’d break my heart into as many, you kennit.”

Roland looked at Rane now, deferring to her. She shook her head at once. This was something she’d give a little thought to while they’d ridden over here after her encounter with Andy.

“We can wait for the real thing until they're touched up. What we need right now is some sort of tool. Like a rake. Or a hoe, or something. Nothing at the end, though, just the handle.” She looked at Eisenhart and his wife. “Do you guys have something like that?”

“For’ee to break what meager tools we’ve got? In _sparring_?” Eisenhart sounded a little outraged. “Lady, thee’s no farmer, that much is clear, if’ee think -!”

“We do, sai!” said Benny Slightman, popping to his feet. He was watching her eagerly. “I’ve glanced ‘em, so I have, Plowin’ harrowers, but busted and ratty from the rice fields and with no stone ends nummore. Can I fetch ‘em, da? They’re just behind the barn, waitin’ for Andy to haul ‘em for burn!”

“Well, it’s better than splittin’ and splinterin’ what we’ve already got, say thankya,” said Slightman, and nodded. Rane noted the specs he wore as they flashed in the hot sun, and had a moment to reflect that she’d seen not a single pair besides his since she’d arrived here. Nice ones, too. “Go on, bring ‘em. And run thee not with that sharp end business-up, help ya.”

“Jake, go with him and see what he speaks of,” Roland added, gesturing. “If they’re suitable to your eye, gunslinger, bring ‘em back. If not we’ll find another way.”

Jake had clearly only been waiting for this command; he hopped to his feet and he and Benny both streaked off, Oy racing madly at their heels.

  
  


THE turned-out harrowers - what Rane suspected may have been called spades, where she was from - turned out to be positively perfect, and though Rane had not sparred with a polearm since she was perhaps seventeen or so, they struck her as almost absurdly well-suited for what she wanted to do. There were six of them all told, each just shy of four feet - almost the length of her own weapon counting the handle - and sanded down to a baby-butt smooth finish, which meant nobody was going to be walking out of here this afternoon with a palm full of splinters, herself included. Also good news. As Jake and Benny dumped them onto the porch for Rane’s inspection, both with chests heaving and sweaty faces full of clear glee, Rane sat down on the porch steps, crossing her long legs beneath her (taking care to yank the hem of her dress down so she wasn’t giving anybody an eyeful; boy oh boy, this was gonna be a bitch and a half without a pair of jeans to cover up her unmentionables), and went about inspecting them each.

Eddie and Roland were leaned against the porch pillar, both with arms crossed, watching this. Roland seemed to be giving the girl full agency to go about this however she felt appropriate, and although Eddie had had his doubts she’d even know what the fuck to do once she’d gotten here - he’d seen the awkward, slightly bug-eyed way she had behaved on stage at the Calla’s party, surrounded by strangers and given a task without much instruction - he was rather impressed by the deft way she went about it. She took each stick in her hands, her long hair hanging in her face, brows knit over her eyes and mouth pursed, and sort of . . . what? _Weighed_ them, he guessed. Held them in the palm of her hand, tipped them this way and that. Ran her hands down their length.

“What does’ee do, sai?” Zalia asked, a trifle shyly, watching this with clear fascination.

“Just making sure we don’t put an eye out, is all. I'm not crazy about the idea of one of these things splitting off and cracking someone in the face.”

This process took her about sixty seconds all said, and she discarded two of them out of hand, placing them behind her on the porch without a backwards glance. Looking up, she met Margaret Eisenhart’s eyes.

“I need leather, or cloth - just thin, for a grip - and matches. Actually -” She glanced at Roland, who had rolled a cigarette and was smoking, looking down at her from beneath the rim of his hat. “ _You’ve_ got matches, Marlboro Man. Give ‘em here, would you?”

He pulled the pack from his breast pocket and tossed them to her underhand. Margaret was getting to her feet, casting about.

“I’ve cloth of a sort, but it’s rucksack, lady, rough, do ya -”

“Aye, and leather’s too dear,” Eisenhart added quickly. “We send it downstream to keep food in our bellies.”

Jake was sure this wasn’t entirely true - judging by all the cattle, he bet the Eisenharts had loads of leather to spare, and this guy just didn’t like her very much, for some reason - but Rane seemed fairly unbothered by this. She was focused on the task at hand now, not coddling to egos or allowing her own to be injured.

“No worries. Our thumbs might just be sore tomorrow, that’s all.” Presently she struck alight one of Roland’s matches - she actually did it across her teeth, something Eddie had never seen outside of an Eastwood flick, and he almost laughed in delighted surprise at this little trick - then let the flame drift beneath one end of each stick, rotating it until there was a slightly blackened spot there. This done, she got to her feet, holding the four sticks she’d marked beneath one arm. She took the little matchbook Roland had lent her and stuffed it back into his breast pocket for him, meeting his eyes and noting the little flicker of amusement there as she drifted a few inches before his face to do so. If he wanted to flirt with her in company like it was a thing to do, she was more than happy to reciprocate.

She strode away from them down the stairs and into the dooryard. Here she dropped all four sticks unceremoniously into the dirt. Everyone was watching her avidly now, even the ranch hands behind them, all of whom had ceased even pretending to work. Rane turned around, her legs staggering a little beneath the hem of her dress, and with a quick little motion tied her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck. It was the quintessential preparing-for-battle move, and both Jake and Benny leaned forward a little, watching with interest.

“Roland, can I pick? Or do you want them to volunteer?” Rane was asking.

Roland twirled a finger in the air. _As you will._

"Okay, then contestant number one." Rane pointed at Margaret, who blanched a little. “Come on downtown, girl.”

Eisenhart shook his head at once.

“Nayupp, nayupp, not with that cursed sharp cutlass, not near my wife, ye won't never!”

"No, I most certainly won't," Rane agreed, and pulling off her swordbelt tossed it into the dirt near the sticks she’d dropped. It clanged loudly in the afternoon silence. “Mister, I don’t aim that thing in cold blood unless I mean to get ugly with it. It won't be coming out for any of this sparring shit, rest assured.”

Eissenhart didn’t look terribly mollified, but Margaret was striding past her husband despite his rough words, and as she drew near, Rane bent, suddenly snatched up two sticks and tossed her one of them without warning. Margaret wasn’t ready for it - that much was written all over her surprised face - but she caught it deftly nevertheless, and in one hand, too. Zalia gave a little cry of surprise at her husband’s side.

“What is it you’d have me do with this thing?” Margaret asked Rane. Though her voice was a trifle uncertain, her eyes were not, and her hands didn’t waver as she grasped the stick.

"I'd have you fight me with it, in a second here."

"Thee'll show me how it swings, at least?"

Rane ignored this. “See that black spot I burned at your end? That’s where your thumb goes. We can start with that.”

“Which one? Is it double-fist?”

Here was another term Rane might have laughed at, if the situation was not so clearly fraught. It had become very quiet besides the birdsong and the faint lowing of cattle, and she was aware that whatever was about to happen here - whatever Roland had set her upon - it was important. Perhaps crucial, at least for these children, for whom unknown horrors awaited not a full moon of days on. When she spoke, her voice was loud and stark in the silence, echoing off the flat land around them, quite without humor.

“Dominant hand,” she said. She grasped her own stick - the weight was odd, lighter and clumsier than her sword, but it would do the trick - and raised it in both her hands before her, slow and steady, at an angle before her chest. “Hold it like this.”

“Come hither and show me, will’ee? Seems odd, so it does.”

Rane shook her head. “Try it first. Get a feel for it.”

Margaret looked at her, flushed, genuine irritation flashing in her eyes, and Rane liked it at once. She had some bite to her, and that would help. "I've never held such a thing like that blade you carry and I'm clumsy with it, sai Roth, you're meant to teach me, not make me look a fool -!"

"I'm not making you look like a fool. This is me teaching you, Margaret." Rane lifted her chin, unwavering. "Try it, I said."

Margaret did, fumbling a little, but it was remarkably fast; she had it pretty much right. This chick was a crackshot so far. Rane dropped the stick she was holding in her own hands into the dirt again, making for Margaret, who was reshuffling her hands on the wood, eyeing the spot Rane had made for her thumb.

“Can I touch you?” Rane asked her frankly, drawing close.

“Thee’d ask my husband,” said Margaret, sounding a trifle amused even in her irritable fluster.

“I’m asking _you_ ,” said Rane. She was flush with her now - the woman was only an inch or two shorter than her - and said, “Hey, look at me.”

Margaret did, marking the woman’s weird, almost preternaturally beautiful features beneath the high, hot sun - her strange eyes, flickering beneath thick brows, the little glisten of sweat at her hairline, the flash of her teeth behind her lips as she breathed a little quicker in the heat - and said, “Aye, lady, I do.”

“Don’t look at it. If you look at it, you’ll spoil it. _Feel_ it, like another part of you. Let it merge in. Slip in like . . . like a key. Into a hole.” Rane’s voice was low and suddenly, startlingly intimate - a bedroom voice - and though Margaret Eisenhart had lay with her husband since time out of mind - had indeed cast away her very creed and family for her heathen man, once upon a time - she flushed a little nevertheless. “Just do what I say for a second. I'm gonna touch you, now. Don't freak out, just stay still.”

Margaret nodded, breathing a little quickly. “Lady, what -?”

“I know what I’m doing. Still, I said.” Rane circled around back of her now, and taking both hands - startlingly - placed them on Margaret’s hips, pressing firmly and straightening her a little. She jumped, shocked by this, but remained still as she’d been told. On the porch, Eisenhart made a sudden move, as if to go down to her, but Tian placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Let her, sai Eisenhart.”

"Keep straight. Stagger your legs and give yourself some perimeter.” Rane nudged one of her shor’boots a little further away from the other with her own. And now she took her hands from Margaret’s waist and placed them on her shoulders, her grip firm and unyielding, and lowering her mouth to the cup of the woman’s ear, ignoring the way she trembled a little at the nearness of this stranger, spoke in that same low, intimate voice, one that seemed fitted for no one so much as a lover.

“Shut your eyes and say what I say to you. Quiet, though, this is just for you. Not any of them.”

“Aye.” Her voice was almost comically conspiratorial as she let her eyes fall closed. The stick which had once been a garden tool and was now a sparring weapon was still hanging before her, trembling slightly.

“ _Maehta’sin onna_.”

“ _Maehta_ . . .” Margaret hesitated.

“ _Maehta’sin onna_.” Rane was persistent.

“ _Maehta’sin onna_.”

“ _Aistana elyë imíca nísi_.”

“ _Aistana elyë imíca nísi_.”

“Do you take into yourself the blessing of Elbereth Gilthoniel, she that will guide your hand?”

“Lady, I know her not.”

“Say yes, Margaret.” Rane sounded a trifle rougher now, and her breath disturbed the fine hairs at Margaret’s temple. “Just say yes.”

Margaret nodded hesitantly. “Yes.”

Margaret heard her exhale, long and trembling and rather lurid against her ear, as if these words gave the woman some sort of religious, almost obscene satisfaction, and her flesh broke out in gooseflesh at once.

"Grace of her be with you, then, and _tolo a'nin_. Now come forward and show me."

Rane suddenly drew away from her, striding back to where she’d dropped her own pole. And now, abruptly, she was moving with a new, lithe speed. Roland, Eddie and Jake all leaned forward a little at once, startled and fascinated by this change. It was like watching some sort of predatory, repose animal leap suddenly out of lazy hiding and streak after prey with unsuspected, hideous speed.

Rane slipped one boot beneath the pole she’d left in the soft soil, and with a motion of agility so absurd it didn’t quite even look real to Eddie, she flipped the damn thing into the air with her toe, caught it deftly in one hand, and flinging it into a whistling circle around her wrist came at Margaret full-force with no warning.

Eisenhart cried out, even though they wielded only sparring poles and not true weapons, but he needn’t have worried. Margaret, yelling with effort but not surprise, blocked her blows once, twice, and then a third time - on the last, Rane let her have a little more, pressing her back so hard that the woman’s boots slid in the soil - then with a shriek of effort Margaret swung the stick around her like a baseball bat and struck Rane full in the ribs. Rane went down at once, her erstwhile weapon clattering from her hands, clutching her side. Margaret seemed prepared to strike her again - she had the stick held high before her, and her breath was coming hard and sharp and her eyes full of fire - but Rane shook her head, lifting her free hand in a clear concession of concord and staggering to her feet. When she met Margaret’s eyes she was grinning, delighted. All the lilting solemnity of a few seconds prior had departed her entirely.

"Holy _shit_ , lady! You really put your back into that one, huh -?"

“Sai, I didn’t - I never meant to -” Margaret looked astounded by herself, like a woman coming out of a fugue. Her face was bright red. “Are’ee -?”

“I’m fine. No, you know what, actually I'm fucking _fantastic_. Honey, you got it up to your eyeballs.” Rane gestured to the stick in the woman’s hands, brushing herself off. “Where’s your thumb? Take a dekko and tell me.”

Margaret looked down and was bewildered to see it was pressed firmly over the black mark Rane had made for her. Had she looked?

"You got a little fire in your belly, woman," said Rane, and plucking the pole from her hands gently tossed it aside and took her cheeks in both hands, almost as if she were about to kiss her. Glancing over Margaret's shoulder, she lifted her voice at Roland, still grinning. "This one is a go. Absofuckinlutely a go."

That man was watching her with a fierce hope, his heart beating hard beneath his shirt, smiling despite himself. So, too, were Eddie and Jake. All three of them had seen this for what it was, even if Tian, Zalia, Eisenhart and Slightman - all of whom were gape-mouthed - had not; hope. Hope for the Calla, and for its children.

"Aye, so you do," said Roland. He could hear the thumping of his heart wavering his voice a little, and Rane saw him rub the center of his chest with the knuckles of the hand that held his cigarette. "And so you'll have her. But we've others to test out."


	17. The Boonie Dress Rehearsal (by Eddie Dean)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are a few more tryouts

_Blackmailed, she fell off every mountain_

_The ones they tightly wrapped in tape_

_In her eraser sang the guilty_

_As it made the best mistakes_

_And with every body that I find_

_And with every claymore that they mine_

_I won't forget who I'm looking for_

_Oh mother help me, I'm looking for . . ._

  * **The Mars Volta**



* * *

The work at Eisenhart’s Rocking B - what Eddie Dean eventually came to call the “boonie dress rehearsal,” much to Roland’s exquisite irritation - lasted them a few more hours into the afternoon. After Margaret Eisenhart had shown her formidable colors, she fell a little silent and resigned beneath her husband’s displeased gaze and vanished indoors after a little while to make them up some middays. Despite Eisenhart’s irritable manner - likely regretting his decision to agree to give over his lawn to this by now - Rane wasn’t through there. Tian Jaffords gave it a valiant shot, but he was rubbish; when Rane came at him he flinched so hard he nearly went onto his ass, and she had to stave off her blows to avoid clocking him upside the head. So, too, was Ben Slightman, who cried off before he’d even made it all the way off the porch steps, citing he couldn’t risk his specs getting clobbered ( _For I’d not get on without ‘em, so I wouldn’t,_ he kept muttering, red to the roots of his hair). Eisenhart would not even entertain the idea of coming down to try. And so that was all for the Calla’s menfolk, or at least the ones who had shown. Rane had an idea this was going to be one very estrogen-heavy band, indeed.

Zalia Jaffords came next, and though she wasn’t as sleek-and-easy effortless as Margaret, she had a fierceness about her that Rane rather liked, one she suspected derived from the children aplenty she kept at her home who stood to be lost. Rosalita Munoz and Sarey Adams had both arrived from their goings-on with the Pere by the time Zalia was stalking off the dooryard, looking flushed and pleased with herself, and although Rane’s dark hair was stuck to her neck with sweat by then, her blood was up with this newly discovered pleasure of battle-training and she welcomed more of them almost hungrily.

Sarey didn’t show much potential; she had a stoutness about her that Rane liked, but not speed enough, and though Rane gave her a second go of it after her near-tearful plea, still she was able to disarm her within the first few seconds. Rosalita Munoz, meanwhile, was almost as good as Margaret. Better, in some ways. She did not flinch when Rane whispered her strange little invocation into her ear, nor when she lay her hands on the woman’s waist, and when Rane whirled around, her draw was very nearly not quick enough. Rosie didn’t waste any time winging Rane as Margaret had; she swung hard and fast, aiming for her throat, and Rane was able to throw a forearm up before her cheek just barely quick enough to spare her a split lip. She would bear a long, dark bruise perpendicular to her elbow for nearly a week from that blow.

Rane dropped her pole as she staggered away from Rosie, both hands held up in surrender, and pointing at her said softly and unsmilingly, “You fight like a wolverine caught in a drainpipe, sweetheart, and I really dig that, but don’t you aim for my mouth like that again.”

Rosalita was panting a little. When she spoke, her words were light enough, but her tone was low and very cool.

“Cry pardon, lady-sai Rane Roth. I’ll not do somethin’ so brash and rude to’ee again, so I won’t, never think it.”

Rane shook her head, approaching Rosie with both hands still held palms out. Rosalita could have clocked her with the pole she still held; there was nothing Rane could have done about it, and Rane wanted her well aware of that fact. This was no two-sided thing. She met the woman’s eyes.

“Don’t do that again,” she repeated, low. “I’d like to keep you pretty fucking bad, but lady, we don’t fight that way in a spar. _Especially_ not over boys,” she added grimly. “Okay?”

Rosie nodded, biting her lip, then tossed her pole into the dust with a flourish and strode off, looking haughty and annoyed. Rane turned her eyes to Roland, who had taken up a spot at the porch steps with Jake, Eddie and Benny (the latter of whom was stroking Oy and watching this with clear fascination).

“She’s in, for sure,” Rane called. “If she wants.”

“She wants,” said Roland, low, watching Rosie lope up the steps.

Rosie scoffed, waving a hand. She swept past Eisenhart and Tian and into the house, where the other woman had gathered. Eddie, who had been chewing his lip and looking on the verge of some great decision for some minutes now, suddenly sprang to his feet.

“Fuck it. I want a turn.”

“Eddie, you _can’t_!” said Jake, looking a little scandalized.

“Hey, man, who knows? Maybe I’m even better at bludgeoning guys to death that shooting ‘em, right? I mean, God hates a coward.”

“Eddie . . .” Roland watched him, sinking back a little, frowning. Eddie was trotting lithely down the steps now, squaring his shoulders a little. Rane eyed him, grinning merrily, eyes glittering below her brows as she turned to him.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe that the illustrious and most preeminent _Joe_ _motherfucking_ _Frazier_ has just entered the ring, and he appears to be preparing himself for that _ooooold_ eight-count that’s coming up on him now -!”

“My dear sweet woman, I fear you’ve mistaken me for someone far more knock-out-able,” Eddie replied dryly, grinning himself. He staggered his legs, shaking his arms out a little, and gave her a little bring-it-on gesture with one hand. “Let’s see whatcha got, darlin’, c’mon, I’ve had my ass parked on that porch all afternoon -”

“Eddie.” Roland’s voice was a tad more insistent now. He was getting to his feet, his eyes a little annoyed. “Now’s hardly the time for this nonsense, do ya.”

Rane tossed him a pole, then folded her arms, watching him. Eddie snatched it out of the air, then held it before him, clutching it, his dark brows knitted. She lifted her chin critically.

“Black spot. Thumb on the black spot.”

“Thumb on the black spot. Check, check, check."

“You sure about this?” Rane eyed him. “I’m not about to play around, Eddie.”

Eddie nodded with assurance. “Yep. C’mon.”

Rane nodded, chewing her lip, then said, “May I touch you?”

“Oh, you don’t have to do all _that_ shit,” said Eddie abruptly, his grin faltering a little.

“Yes, I do. That’s part of the whole thing.” Rane was approaching him, slow in the dust, and when she’d drawn near enough to him that he could mark the shoots of gold in her irises, at last he began to falter a little.

“No, no, fuck it, Christ. Suze would skin me alive if I went through with this silly shit.” Eddie was bright red. He stuffed the pole into Rane’s arms. “Fine, I’m Frazier. Let Roland do it.”

“To amuse you? Never in life,” said Roland, arms folded.

“I think he’s tagging you in,” Rane said over Eddie’s shoulder, looking amused. “Are you crying off? Because I dunno what they call that here, but there’s a word for it where I’m from, and not a very nice one, either.”

Jake and Benny both looked at Roland, who actually rolled his shoulders a little uncomfortably at their gaze. He cleared his throat, pulling his hat off his head and letting it fall to his shoulders.

“I’d not engage in such foolish -”

“Oh, it's _foolish_ now?” Rane asked loudly. “Wasn’t it you who wanted me to do it in the first place? Can’t you put your money where your mouth is?”

“I’ve no skill in swordplay.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing here in the first place. Teaching.”

Eddie, Jake and Benny were all looking at him now - and so, too, were Sarey, Margaret and Zalia, all of whom had appeared at the window at the sound of Eddie and Rane antagonizing one another. Roland sighed.

“I’m surrounded by fools,” he said irritably, striding down the steps. Eddie lifted a hand for him to high five as they passed bread-and-butter, but Roland ignored him, and Eddie slapped his own hand instead, giving Jake Chambers over to helpless giggles.

“Take thy falchion, heartsome gladiator, and show me what’s in thy belly,” Rane said in a loud falsetto, tossing Roland Eddie’s old pole. He caught it, scowling at her.

“Serious, then, if’ee will. I’ll learn a weapon, but not while thee’s being frivolous.”

Rane straightened decorously. “Very well, gunslinger.” She grasped her pole before her demonstratively, and nodded to his. “Thumb on the trigger.”

Roland placed the good one over it. The grasp was awkward already because of his missing two fingers, but he thought he could still wield a saber like this if he had to in a pinch, though it bore little comfort in relation to an iron in his left. And in any case, the learning of a weapon was never unwise, even if for so silly a purpose. He held it up before him, aiming its tip some forty-five degrees from his forehead.

“Very well. As this?”

“Very, very well indeed.” Rane cast her pole in the dust and strode to him, reaching him until they were nearly nose to nose. He didn’t flinch - hardly could, with every damn farmer and rancher in the Calla watching him from the porch, now, all counting on him to show his gullet against their adversaries - but still he could tell she was relishing this. She pressed his pole down a little with one hand, and let her mouth hover just above his, bold indeed, meeting his eyes, and he marked her, unable not to. Her dark hair was stuck to her neck with her sweat, her face flushed and lovely, and the way her eyes flitted between his gaze and his mouth was hellishly fetching. And now he realized why she’d really done this. It was her little petty revenge for their first night in the Calla, when he’d allowed for all its folken to go along their way thinking she was his jilly. A bit this afternoon, now, too. _You wanted it?_ her bright, merry gaze seemed to ask. _Well you got it, now, like it or not. Eat your pretty desserts, sweetheart, and may you take joy of them._

“You take this as a joke,” he murmured.

Rane shook her head slowly. “I don’t think you know just how little I do. May I touch you?”

Roland nodded, barely perceptible. “Aye, you may.”

Rane moved around him then, much as she had with Margaret. It was a bit more complicated now - she’d been taller than Margaret by a bit, and Roland outstripped her by a good five inches - but still she grasped his lean waist between her palms, straightening him. Despite his distraction, Roland felt his stance improve almost at once. It was almost supernatural. Suddenly his missing two fingers didn’t seem to matter, and he felt the list of his hips correct itself. His feet felt firmer on the earth.

Rane didn’t grasp his shoulders, as she had Margaret and Zalia and the rest; she moved back around to his front and placed both hands against the sides of his throat, her grasp gentle and warm. She leaned closer to him, the toes of her boots nearly touching his, and put her eyes on his.

“Roland Deschain, listen to me now, please.”

Her voice had dropped to a sultry, incredibly sensuous tone, and Roland felt his heart begin to thump at once.

“Say what I say,” said Rane softly, “and quiet, because this is only for you. Not them, not even me.”

“Don’t speak that way. I beg.” His voice was rough.

“Just say what I say, Roland." Her hands on his neck were warm and inexorable. He sensed the strength lingering in them, controlled and potent as the tides, and had a moment to wonder when the last time was he'd let anyone put their fingers on his throat, so near the thickness of sinew and gristle and flowing blood that kept his life within his chest. Eddie, he supposed, on the beach. Beyond that, he knew not.

_“Maehta’sin onna.”_

_“Maehta’sin onna.”_

_“Aistana elyë imíca veo.”_

“I heard thy ladies say something different.”

The reason for this - _nísi_ was feminine, and _veo_ was masculine - was something Rane had no interest in explaining to him. "Just say it, Roland."

“ _Aistana elyë imíca veo_.”

And now Rane leaned up on her tiptoes, letting her mouth linger close to his ear, her breath hot against his cheek. He sighed roughly, eyes falling shut.

“Roland Deschain, do you take into yourself the grace of Elbereth Gilthoniel, she that will guide your hand?” she asked him.

Though Roland didn’t know this deity any more than Margaret or Zalia had, he nodded, feeling the eyes of their spectators on them. For now, it was Eisenhart, Tian, Slightman and even Rosalita that had taken their places at the porch with their fellows, eyeing the storied gunslinger of Gilead and the sword-carrying stranger, squaring up on the latter's turf, commanding it even though the world she stood in wasn't her own. Even Eddie was watching this avidly.

“Aye, lady, I take her into me.”

Rane shut her eyes and sighed lustily like a woman intensely aroused by something, pressing her mouth against Roland’s shoulder, dragging at his shirt with white-knuckled ferocity, and he felt some strange, sensuous power seem to surround them like a dim light. She was passing something of hers into him, he thought, something ill-seen but palpable, and he could feel the thin hairs on the back of his neck standing up as her breath ran hot against his skin.

“Gunslinger, _dagnir’dor,_ it's yours, then, so _tolo’anin_ , come now and show me how you move.”

And then she swept back from him, moving with the same sinuous speed he'd seen her use all afternoon, and she bent, snatched the pole from the dirt, and with a sudden motion, silent save the roughness of the exhale between her clenched teeth, she struck at him.

He found himself blocking her, though, and with surprise. How _had_ he? After each strike she let fly, he threw it away from him with a sharp snap, like the breaking of a bone. He, who had never even made much with a bow or a bah in his youth, slinging back this woman's clearly practiced attacks . . . whatever she had imparted in him -

“Harder. Come on.” Rane's voice was harsh. She stepped back from him a moment, twirling the pole around her wrist, then switched it to her right hand behind her back. A completely unnecessary show of skill, and one meant to taunt him.

" _Get_ her, Roland!" Jake cried fiercely from the porch, his voice shrill.

"Olan!" Oy agreed. "Olan-Olan!"

Rane paced before him for a moment, eyeing him beneath her dark brows, her lips curved into a grim little smirk. She looked like nothing so much as a feline to Roland - a big one, a rock cat, maybe - stalking here and there before her prey. She was enjoying this, he realized, the same way a predator would enjoy playing with her quarry before pouncing.

"Go easy," Roland said, low, keeping his own pole before him. He felt a trifle foolish, sparring with such a thing, but it was clear that she felt right at home, judging by the way she was twirling it before her, keeping it expertly held before her. "Go easy, now -"

Rane swung at him from underhand, taking two steps forward, her hair flying, and Roland blocked her again. And now, feeling a trifle of the old chill falling over his gaze, he came at her on the offensive now, growling a little. She blocked him, but he saw her boots slide a little in the dust as she did, and he was heartened.

"Go harder. Come on, Roland, dammit. Quit thinking about it and do it."

"I am -"

"No, gunslinger, you aren't," Rane hissed. "Come at me. Come _at_ me."

And with her teeth gritted the pole in her hands began to move faster, flying now. Roland began to struggle a little, stumbling back a step. Rane advanced on him, her hair flying, her boots moving expertly beneath her, kicking up dust, the long muscles in her arms flexing.

“COME ON!” she shouted at him suddenly. "HIT ME!"

Abruptly he _found_ it - he found this hidden skill beneath the skin of him, the same way he’d found the hellish speed of his gunfire as he’d trained beneath Cort so many long years ago - and with one hard, rolling strike he flung the pole from the line of his body and grasping her dress dragged her close to him, aiming his own false weapon at her throat, as if to do her through. For a moment they both stood there, his fist on her shift, nose to nose, both panting.

“Good job." She was breathing quickly, nodding, and her face was inches from his. He dropped his pole, releasing her, his own thin chest heaving. “You caught on quick.”

There was a smattering of applause behind them, but Roland barely noticed. He was panting almost madly, but not because of their swordplay.

“Take me somewhere,” he gasped at her, as quietly as he could, helpless to say much else. “Make an excuse. I cannot.”

“I want to see the other side of the ranch,” Rane said, looking back at Eisenhart. Cool as you please, though Roland could see the race of her pulse against her throat. She was bending, snatching up her belt and latching it about her lean waist even as she said this. “There’s a pretty little dip-off I saw on your property, Mister Eisenhart. Could be a vantage point. Can we take five? I'll take this big goofy bum with me, he's got better eyes than I do. We can catch our breath after all this nonsense.”

This was utter and complete bullshit, of the sort Eddie Dean most certainly didn't buy - his eyebrows went very high indeed - but Eisenhart swallowed it all the way down, looking almost absurdly pleased for the first time that afternoon. “At thy pleasure, though mind the drop.”

"I always mind the drop," said Rane, and tossing her pole on the dirt turned at once. "Or I try to, anyways."

Roland and Rane got about fifty feet from the ranch house, both trying their fuckedest to walk casually, before he pressed her behind a crop of brush and shoved her against a tree, kissing her, pulling her down to the dusty earth, almost wild with desire for her. Rane went willingly enough, pulling off her swordbelt and casting it aside as he did, accepting his mouth on hers and his hands roving up her dress.

“Rane, I can’t -” Roland was already pulling the fly of his jeans free, his mouth over her own. “Oh, gods -”

"Roland, go slow, Jesus Christ, please, I know -"

Roland was shaking his head. "I cannot, lady, not now -"

He entered her, snatching up her skirts and pressing his thighs against the silt, his thin chest heaving, forehead pressed against hers. This was not making love, but the turning of a valve done up so tight it was at risk of exploding, and they both knew it, had both felt the furious, almost insurmountable tension as they sparred. Rane bit against a scream, and for all the gods that _did_ exist - Elbereth amongst them, perhaps - it was over in moments for them both, so mad had their sudden desire been. They lay there now, Roland over her, both breathing frantically, sand and silt covering them, the dust of their motions floating away behind them in the dry winds. If Eddie or Jake looked back and saw that cloud, Rane thought, they’d know right away what had just happened.

“Yes, they would, indeed,” said Roland, soft, his mouth against her throat. She pressed her lips against his sweaty crown, her brows knitted.

“Did you just _hear_ that?” she asked him, a bit frightened of the answer. "What I was thinking about?"

“Enough of it.” He moved down a little ways, lay his ear against her chest and wrapped his arms around her lean torso. “The sound of your heart so quick after you’ve had me in you is far lovelier than what you'd think on those who might see, though. It's to that I'd listen.”

Rane hesitated, then put her arms around his shoulders, clutching him to her gently. Her eyes were on the sky above, blessedly blue, shot through with fat white clouds and the occasional crow, and though it was hot, they’d found shade, and it was cool enough with the breeze, sweat-soaked as they were. She relished, for a moment, all these clear, flawless sensations; the silt beneath her, where her dress had hitched; the wind on her skin; the full, damp wetness between her legs that was this man’s leavings inside her; and then Roland Deschain’s weight upon her, his legs stretched out behind him, his arms around her lean torso, his head pressed over her chest, and the quick, hard thump of his own heart perceptible against her belly, growing and waning with his breath. She relished it for a moment, running her hands through his hair, then shut her eyes on all the rest, letting her fingertips trace his sweat-damp scalp and counting his heartbeats against the muscle of her torso. One-two . . . one-two . . . one-two . . . hard and fast, but steadying now that the time was passing, surely as steady as his loping gait across all the worlds, on to his crux. Something about it undid her.

“I can feel your heart beating,” she said softly against the top of his head, kissing him gently, smelling the tobacco and sweat and dust there.

“And I felt yours the night we danced,” Roland said, low, against the front of her dress. He hesitated, then asked, very softly, “Was it for fear of me, or something else? You never answered me.”

Rane laughed, low, and leaning up pressed another kiss against the top of his head. She poured more into it than politeness.

“You know why, Roland. Don't you?”

Roland said nothing at first. He brought his knees up a little, and curling beside her clutched her free hand and pressed his lips against her palm. His chin was rough and unshaven, but his lips were warm. He moved up beside her and faced her in the silt, meeting her eyes. He reached forward and met her lips with his, then lay his forehead against her own.

"Do I?" he asked softly.

Rane shook her head gently, her hair rustling beneath her in the dust. "Do you?"

"I don't know how to say it."

"Yeah, it shows. Makes two of us." Rane eyed him. "That's gonna be a talk. Like a _real_ talk, not one where you stand there looking weird and making one-liners."

“I may have made a mistake,” he said softly, meeting her eyes.

“You and me both,” said Rane, and leaning forward kissed him. She relished the feel of his mouth on hers, and the bloom of warmth in her chest was lovely and familiar. She knew what that feeling meant. Had always known. “Can we stay here a little while? That gorge isn’t a few miles away yet, they're not gonna want for us yet.”

“We may, lady, if you’d like. I would."

  
  



	18. The Confession

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roland and Rane have a heart to heart

  
_It don't matter if the cold wind blows_   
_I'm gonna wind up working in the thick of it_   
_Sunshine through the rain and snow_   
_There's an oily brine bilge water baptism waiting below_   
_That's just the waves slamming against the topsides' sound_   
_Don't let the ever rolling motion go and get you down_   
_Don't let it shake your steady thread cutting hand_   
_Keep stealing ribbons from the steel and giving hell_   
_To every halyard you can._

**\- Brown Bird**

* * *

Rane left Roland a little while after they’d made love on the hills of the Rocking B. He’d fallen asleep, something she thought he rarely did in such an exposed place, and he lay curled into a comma, his arms wrapped around his lean torso, eyes shut and face lax. She wondered, as she stood above him, how many men and women had seen this man in such a vulnerable position. He was dangerous indeed, and though she’d lulled him into somnolence, she wondered how a harrier would fare, coming upon him this way. She thought not well. He seemed the sort to leap to the fore and pound bullets into you, were you to disturb him in the wrong moment. He didn’t hear her now, though, and it was likely due to her father’s blood rather than her own skill. The sun still hung high in the sky, and they hadn't been gone for long - less than an hour - but the rest of them would start to wonder where they'd gotten off to before too much longer, doubtless. Distantly, as she pulled her weapon belt around her trim waist, Rane could hear the snapping sound of poles being smashed together, and was a little heartened by it; they'd taken up practice in her absence. That was good. _Very_ good.

Striding off a little ways, Rane sat on the edge of the very drop-off she’d asked Eisenhart about some hour or so before as pretense, though she’d only mentioned it to placate him for long enough to whisk Roland Deschain off on his own for her sordid reasons. It was deep indeed, dropping off suddenly and sharply, and her eyes roved over the lay of the land beneath. He’d spoken true when he had advised her to mind her footing; she had little doubt she’d perish badly if she took a wrong step. Some of his cattle had suffered that same fate, judging by the faint, sun-bleached bones that rested at the bottom of the ravine. Perhaps that was why he kept his stock so close to his home. She sat on the ledge nonetheless, curling her long legs beneath her, and clasped her hands at her throat, the brisk wind blowing her long hair loose of the knot she’d tied when she had taught the Calla women how to wield a sword.

Rane's memory had begun to return in its fullness. She had remembered bits and pieces before; those memories were clinical things, without very much nearness or emotion. That there was a man named Arthur Morgan in her past - yes, she understood that. That she'd loved him - yes, she understood that as well. He'd died, and had she been unhappy for it? Yes, of course she had, sure, anyone would have been. These were shallow, emotionless thoughts. But what about the way his eyes had turned up when he smiled? What about the nights he had held her against him, while the crickets chirruped outside? What about the sound of her name leaving his lips? What about the way she had taken his lifeless body against her own, while she bled from a gutshot, on a snowy mountain, weeping against his stiffening shoulder? What about _those_ things? How had she forgotten the recesses of her heart so easily? And that was to say nothing, _nothing,_ of Sirius Black, now so very long ago, or Idril, her very own child. The _depth_ had returned to her, the _depth_ , and it was a frightening thing indeed.

“Rane, what in the fuck are you doing,” she murmured, her voice very low. “You forgot Arthur. You forgot Sirius. Fuck, you forgot Idril, even. You forgot your daughter. Like she never even existed.”

There was no response to this, except for the whistling wind and the call of songbirds. She was alone, utterly. Rane looked out at the long, slow drop - feeling the brisk, cool breeze and the sharp, bright hurt in her chest - then lowered her face into her hands and wept for a few minutes. She was quiet about it, betraying only a few sharp breaths, her thin torso flexing, and then lifted her head again, facing the sun and forcing this grief away. She wished, badly and for the first time in a long while, for her father, with the earnest want of a child. He would have had counsel and reprieve for her. He'd have known what to do. But he was somewhere else, far from her, and she felt certain she would never see him again.

Now, she was kindling to this new man. It seemed she flitted between them like a shark between prey, as someone had once told her. Who had it been, that had said that?

"Limdur Eilric," she murmured at once. The name emerged from her mind like a body rising from a lake, fully formed, only waiting to be summoned. "He wasn't talking about me, though, he was talking about Arthur. When they kept us in that room in Hostas."

And the _irony_! Because _Arthur_ had been the one to pass away from her, and _she_ was the one that had flitted. How long before the next happened along? Maybe Roland would die, and she’d leave him in her wake, as she had so many others. Maybe he’d perish. Maybe he’d die in the road behind her. And then what? Would she continue? On to the next, and the next, and the next? Was that her curse?

“I won’t perish.”

Rane whirled around, scrubbing at her cheeks with the heels of her hands. Roland stood there, arms folded, watching her.

“How in the actual fuck do you always manage to sneak up on me like that?” she asked roughly.

“An unfortunate talent. Let me sit with you.”

Rane shook her head, looking away from him. “Roland, I’m starting to remember some stuff, I’m not in any way for company.”

“Nevertheless.”

Rane turned her eyes up to him, feeling grimly amused. He was standing there, hands linked in his belt, watching her, with no intention of backing away. He was nothing if not relentless. She sighed, gesturing.

“‘No’ doesn’t register with you, huh?”

“Not particularly well.”

“Roland, this is sort of a personal thing.”

"As personal as our coming together, just now?" Roland was watching her, unwavering. “Can I not speak with you on it?”

Rane, recognizing defeat, gestured. He sat at her side, pulled his tobacco from his purse, considered it, then put it away.

“May I touch you?” he asked her, echoing her sentiments earlier.

“No,” Rane replied, glaring across the drop sullenly and chewing her thumbnail.

“You say no, but you want me to.”

“Where'd you get your psychology degree? Harvard? Princeton?"

“I don’t know what that means.”

Rane glanced sidelong at him. He was watching her, unyielding as ever. She sighed.

“Roland, I’m feeling a little bit exposed,” she admitted, low. “Do you know how I mean, when I say that? 'Exposed?'”

"Yes. I'm slow, Rane, but I'm not an idiot. I know what you mean." His voice was a trifle derisive. "I'd know why, in any case. I can touch your mind a little, but the way your thoughts move are strange to me. I don't always understand them."

"Seems kind of rude to just go rifling around in somebody's head," Rane murmured. She was snatching up rocks from the dirt at her side and hucking them one by one off the cliff, frowning. "Where I'm from, anyway."

"Perhaps." Roland looked fairly unmoved by this pronouncement. "May I touch you? Or will thee go on with thy glibness until I leave?"

Rane shrugged and nodded. Roland moved a little closer and strung one arm around her shoulders, drawing her to him. Despite her shortness, Rane accepted this gesture willingly enough, glad for his closeness. The smell of him - sweat and tobacco and leather - was pleasant and strong, and she leaned against his shoulder.

"What fashes thee?" he asked her gently. "What causes you to feel exposed? I heard you from where we holed up, unhappy."

_He's trying to say he heard me crying_ , Rane thought, and felt a deep, rather egotistical swoop of shame. Aloud, she said, "I'm starting to remember things from before, is all. Some of it hurts." She hesitated, then added, in an uncharacteristically low voice, "I miss my dad, Roland. He'd know what to do."

Roland glanced down at her, a little undone by this. He'd just watched her spend several hours showing the Calla women how to swing a weapon with almost uncanny ferocity and merciless skill, and now here she was, speaking with childlike wistfulness of wanting for her father. Had she said she felt exposed? He knew why now, he thought.

“Rane Roth, I’d have you know I’m halfway to . . .”

He stopped, blinking, then pulled away. Rane chose to let this one go. This was clearly not a conversation either of them were prepared to have.

“Jake’s got us pegged,” she remarked.

“Oh?”

“Oh.”

“How?”

“He asked me earlier today if we liked each other. And that’s how he phrased it, too. ‘Liked’ each other. Like we were a couple of little kids in the schoolyard making eyes at each other.” Rane eyed him. “You wanna tell me how to respond to that? Because I don’t know.”

“Tell him yes.”

Rane looked at him in surprise. He'd still given some space between them, and he was clutching his knees, staring out across the gorge, not meeting her gaze, betraying nothing.

“You want me to tell him yes?” Rane was smirking. “You want me to tell him yes about that, Roland?”

Roland shrugged, still not looking at her. “Rane, I’ve known you a few days but I’m in l -”

“No, don’t you fucking say that to me. Don’t you goddamned dare.”

Roland looked over at her, surprised by the abrupt coldness of her voice. She sat beside him, legs curled beneath her in her black dress, the wind whipping tendrils of her dark hair about her face. She was staring at him from beneath her brows with something like genuine hatred.

"I cry your pardon," he said softly. "I thought you -"

She got abruptly to her feet. “I’m going back to the ranch. They're going to be missing us pretty soon here.”

“Wait.” Roland was looking at her frankly, feeling out of sorts. “We cannot leave this unspoken between us, Rane -”

“I’m not DOING this again,” Rane said, suddenly loud, her eyes flashing. Her voice echoed flatly across the drop. “I _won’t_. I will absolutely fucking _not_. Not again.”

Roland got to his feet, meeting her hard gaze with his own. “What happened to your friends?”

Rane was a little thrown by this sudden query. “What do you mean? Who?”

“Your friends. The ones from your other life. Arthur. John. Dusk.”

“Dutch. His name was Dutch.” Rane shifted her weight, still feeling a bit put off by this sudden change of direction. "I told you already what happened to them."

"You said they died." Roland shook his head. "There are many ways to do that, Rane. You left me to sit here and moan about the thought of them. So moan to _me_. Tell _me_." His voice rose a little, showing the veriest desperation. " _Tell_ me what fashes thee. As dinh, if I am nothing more to you than that. But _tell_ me. For I'd know, and I tire of trying to pry you open like an oyster."

"That's none of your business."

"Yes," said Roland, and now his voice was rising too, imperious and inexorable. "It _is_ my business. I've made it so, for better or worse. Tell me what happened to those people. I'd not seek it in your mind, but if I must, to understand you, I will, you ken. For I've more at stake here than just my heart, or those of my ka-mates, though I've put that into your hands well enough now."

Rane wilted a little at this. She could see Roland's thin chest heaving a little as he breathed quickly, waiting for her answer.

"John is fine. He went on. Arthur was shot. Dutch, I put my sword through his throat." She looked crestfallen now. "I didn't remember how those people _felt_ , Roland, not until today. It isn't that they're dead, or two of them are, anyways . . . it's that I forgot how they felt. How I _felt_ for them. _That's_ what fashes me. Does that answer your question?" She hesitated, meeting his eyes frankly. "There are things worse than dying. I'm a perfect example of that. This is some sort of hell, for me. I'm . . . I'm damned. Or some fucking thing. Circles, and circles, and more circles, and every single time I meet people, and I love them, and then I lose them. I lose _myself_. And then I'm thrown someplace else, just to do it all over again. That's what fashes me, Roland, _that's_ what." She clutched her head suddenly. "I'm going to lose my mind, if I let this happen to me again. I will. I'll end up in the next one crazy as a shithouse mouse. I can't . . . I can't forget again."

She fell silent, feeling stupid about this sudden diatribe. Roland linked his hands into his belt, watching her introspectively.

"Nevertheless," he said at length, his voice quite flat, "you must see this for what it is."

"Did you just hear anything I -?"

"All of it, and very well, and I say thankya." Roland moved forward, taking her face in his hands, meeting her eyes. "Listen well to me now, Rane Roth, and don't interrupt, for I've not the courage to say it twice."

She fell silent, looking into his strange blue eyes. It was silent save his ragged breath and the calls of birds above.

"I fell in love with you days ago," he said frankly. "I won't say when or how because those things belong to me, but I did. Now I must live with it, and it's made more difficult by your shilling and skittishness. I won't let this hurt me, not so near to this business with the Wolves. I can't. So tell it to me true, am I alone?"

If asked about what she thought she might do in this situation at any point prior, Rane Roth would have said she'd have fled like her hair was on fire and her ass was catching if Roland Deschain had said this to her. She surprised herself by leaning forward, throwing her arms around him and kissing him hard. So there it was. She'd done what she had sworn she wouldn't, and there was just nothing for it. May as well try to deny the tides at this point.

“Roland, help me. Because I don’t know what to do with it. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

He drew back from her and then wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to his hard-beating heart, sighing.

“I can’t see how to tell my tet,” he said at length. "Susannah will be difficult to live with."

"You told me on that mountain to put this away," Rane said from against his vest, muffled. "The fuck was that all about?"

"Ill-advised," Roland replied, shaking his head. "We've fucked the dog, as Eddie says."

Rane snorted. "It's 'screwed the pooch,' Roland."

"If you say so."

"We should get back."

"Not yet. Let me hold you a moment." Roland kissed the top of her head, and the leagues of emotion there made Rane want to cry all over again. Oh, Gods. What had she gotten herself into?


End file.
